Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive.

For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

The program was originally broadcast in 1998, and the presenter was Sue Lolly. My castaway this week is a writer. His plays for television are a history of the

medium over the past 35 years. He began as a script writer for Coronation

Street. He invented London's burning and in between came up with

innumerable award-winning plays such as the evacuees, Bermitsvah boy and Spend-Spend-Spend.

Much of his writing is semi-autobiographical,

reflecting his Manchester Childhood, National Service,

and his Jewishness.

Eccentric, he says, means absolutely normal.

Comedy comes from pain, the everyday is drama. He is Jack

Rosenthal. Is that what you do then, Jack? You write about what you see and what you experience.

Simple as that, is it?

Well, yeah, not quite so simple, I suppose.

I always like to start with a character and then find a vehicle to put the character in so that you can illustrate the eccentricities that I go on about.

But would that be somebody you'd met or seen?

I mean, are you constantly observing people looking for it? Yes, I think I do do that. It's anything you've read, people you've met,

stories you've heard, anecdotes you've heard, or things you've felt or experience yourself.

But an essential element of what you do is that there's a lot of humor in it. Now, is that you, are you humorous when you're out and about or is it when you go home and kind of work on it?

I think I am, but I have a face that isn't at all humorous and I am

Legubrious is the word that's the word yes I notice that when I shave every morning

But I don't really think I'm like that.

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