After the war he studied English literature at Jesus College, Cambridge, leading to the award of an MA degree.
While at Cambridge he joined Footlights and both wrote and directed La Vie Cambridgienne, a revue broadcast by the BBC in July 1948.
While there he saw a production by Jack Mitchley of the Christopher Fry play A Phoenix too Frequent, staged in the round, which caused him to experience "a bee beginning to buzz at the back of my mind".
He returned to the Central School of Speech and Drama as a tutor, then in 1951 was granted leave of absence to study for a degree in playwriting at the University of Iowa.
After many difficulties and frustrations in finding suitable venues in London, a chance meeting led in 1955 to his using the concert room in the Central Library at Scarborough, on the Yorkshire coast.