As a fellow student at Edinburgh University in the 1970s, I remember Michael Boyd’s short play God, Herbert, Donne and the Devil. It was a brilliant piece of witty writing and tight directing, a glowing highlight for the University Theatre Company in its old premises in Hill Street.
The BBC followed a ragtag student company in which Michael was an actor performing the 16th-century comedy Gammer Gurton’s Needle, in a documentary series titled The Entertainers. Michael gave it its subtitle when seen, in colourful costume, asking a bemused resident: “Hello, are you coming to the show?” Perhaps unfairly, the New Statesman devoted its whole TV column to review the documentary saying it was “a play produced by a bunch of students with more hang-ups than a school cloakroom”.
It was clear that Michael was headed for greater things, and as a result of producing this rather strange tour of the Highlands, I received encouragement from the BBC documentary director Peter Carr and ended up as a television producer/director.
