Not least because of his own performance in a small part called Sourface – “typecasting,” he jokes.

“It’s pretty clear in my mind largely because of having done Stags and Hens the Remix two years ago at the Royal Court,” he says. “And because Annie (Russell – his wife) co-produced it, I was very close to the making of it, and because I wrote a lot of the music for it I was endlessly having to watch it.

“I wasn’t there during every frame of shooting because I never think an author should be, but I’d occasionally take the kids down to remind them who their mother was.”

Strong narrative is the key to a story that successfully moves between different media, he says.

“It is vital but I don’t always begin with narrative. Dancin’ Thru the Dark began because I’d had the notion of setting something in the ladies and gents of a ballroom, so it came out of the idea of a set, which is very unusual for me,” he reveals.

“With things like Educating Rita, Shirley Valentine, they were absolutely character to begin with.

“Blood Brothers, Our Day Out – they were complete stories that I then had to find the characters for.”

He inherited his love of story-telling from his mother, who worked in a book publishers and whose tales feature strongly in his earliest memories.

“I grew up in a working-class area where, yes, literacy had been introduced post-1944 Education Act, but still in that community and in the equivalent of those communities today, the most trusted form of communication is oracy,” explains Russell.

“There are a few of my friends who are just beautiful storytellers, but if you called them that they’d be embarrassed.”

The difference between natural yarnspinners and professional writers is “stamina”, he says.

“The talent bit of it you can’t account for. If you have whatever it takes to be able to play a violin or write a line of dialogue where that comes from is the eternal mystery,” he continues.

“But given that you then have to learn a lot about the business that you’re employed in.”

This is one of the reasons he is keen to help raise funding for Clapperboard UK, which gives young people the chance to make their own films.

“I’m very happy to support something that provides those opportunities to kids,” he says.

“When I began, there was nothing like that. I’m not saying everyone who gets on it will go and work in film, but that doesn’t matter.

“If you get involved in something like that you can learn so much, and you often see that kids who will take part in projects like this one that are the ones who won’t get involved in school.”

CLAPPERBOARD Presents . . . Willy Russell and Dancin’ Thru The Dark at FACT on Monday, February 8. Tickets £10 (£7 concs), 08717 042063.