[3] While at Oxford, Wardle participated in theatre, performing in a production of The Tempest alongside the actors Nigel Davenport and Jack May, the future directors John Schlesinger and Bill Gaskill, and Mary Moore, the future principal of St Hilda's College, Oxford.

[4] Wardle's early appointments included an anonymous fortnightly review spot on the Bolton Evening News, beginning in 1958.

[5] He worked as a sub-editor on The Times Literary Supplement, as deputy theatre critic (to Kenneth Tynan) on The Observer,[5] from 1959 to 1963, as drama critic for The Times from 1963 to 1989,[6][7] editor of Gambit[8] 1973 to 1975, and as theatre columnist for The Independent on Sunday from 1990 to 1995, when his position was eliminated amid financial cuts.

[13] The play is semi-autobiographical, based on Wardle's experience from a part-time job washing dishes at a London guest house.

A television production was made for ITV's Playhouse season and screened on 3 July 1982, directed by Christopher Hodson.