Born in Heaton Moor, Stockport, Cheshire, the son of a bank manager, Gow attended Altrincham County High School.
In the late 1920s he made several educational silent films with his pupils: The People of the Axe (1926) and The People of the Lake (1928) recreated life in ancient Britain, the latter produced 'with the approval of' Sir William Boyd Dawkins; The Man Who Changed His Mind (1928) was a Boy Scout adventure with a cameo from Robert Baden-Powell; The Glittering Sword (1929) was a medieval parable about disarmament.
At the age of 35 he had his first professional production, in London and New York, with Gallows Glorious (1933), a play about the American slavery abolitionist John Brown.
In 1934 he wrote Love on the Dole, based on Walter Greenwood's novel about unemployment in Salford during the Great Depression.
[1] His other adaptations include Vita Sackville-West's The Edwardians and A Boston Story (1966), based on Henry James' Watch and Ward.