Taylor was born on 6 November 1929 in Glasgow and grew up in the Crosshill district of Govanhill, in a politically radical Jewish family with strong ties to the Labour Party.
[2] Aa Went Tae Blaydon Races, a historical drama about a miners' strike on Tyneside in 1862, was the first play by Taylor to be premiered by a professional theatre company.
[2] A long relationship with the Traverse Theatre in Edinburgh began in 1965, enabling Taylor to leave his day job and concentrate on his work as a dramatist.
The first play for the Traverse was Happy Days Are Here Again, followed by Bread and Butter (1966), Lies about Vietnam (1969), The Black and White Minstrels (1972), Next Year in Tel Aviv (1973), Schippel (1974), Gynt (1975), Walter (1975), and Withdrawal Symptoms (1978).
[2] By the late 1970s, Taylor became increasingly involved with the Live Theatre Company in Newcastle, which premiered several of his plays, among them Some Enchanted Evening (1977), Bandits (1977), Operation Elvis (1978), And a Nightingale Sang (1978) – a bitter-sweet comedy set in wartime Tyneside – and The Saints Go Marching In (1980 – later known as Bring Me Sunshine, Bring Me Smiles').