[6] Prior to attending RADA, he appeared as an actor in the role of Swiss Cheese in the Midlands premiere of Brecht's Mother Courage in Stratford-upon-Avon, 1961.
[7] He is a contemporary of British actor Ian McKellen,[8] and the two began their professional careers working on many of the same productions with Digby Day serving as assistant director.
Particularly successful were his touring productions of Sondheim's A Little Night Music and Company, Shaw's The Devil's Disciple, Somerset Maugham's Our Betters, and J M Barrie's Peter Pan.
He directed Geraldine McEwan at the National Theatre in Two Inches of Ivory, a production about Jane Austen that has been seen all over the world under the auspices of the British Council, the UK's official international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations.
From 1990 to 1998, he was director of the National Theater Institute at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, CT. During this period, he served on the Regional Committee of the Arts Council of Great Britain, on the National Council for Drama Training, was Chairman of the Drama Panel of the Yorkshire Arts Association, and taught regularly at colleges and universities in the United States.