Gawn Grainger and I got to know each other well in the mid-1990s, during the filming and subsequent theatre run of Julian Mitchell’s Welsh relocation of Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya, entitled August.
As a schoolboy I had seen most of Gawn’s National Theatre appearances – I particularly loved his slimy aristocrat Oronte in Molière’s The Misanthrope.
A fierce and unwavering champion of my only play, Bitter With a Twist, he gave it an early reading with Brian Cox at the Bush theatre in London. As a result, the Bristol Old Vic staged it in 1999 and Faber published it. Gawn never lost his extraordinary humility and bonhomie. Everything was possible, nothing was off-limits.
