Paul Slabolepszy is one of South Africa's best-known and most popular and prolific playwrights, his works having been performed in the United Kingdom, the United States, Germany, France, Australia, Sweden, Denmark and the Middle East. His body of work is extraordinary, with more than 30 plays written in close on 40 years. In addition, he has written numerous screenplays, television and radio plays.

My 34-year director/playwright association with Paul, which started in 1982 at the Market Theatre with Saturday Night at the Palace and has stretched to nearly a score of stage, television and film productions, has been a rare blessing in my career. I have had the privilege of seeing him develop as a playwright. As a close family friend I have watched him balance his career as an actor with his writing and performing and his role as husband and father. In this country it is difficult to make a living in the arts and almost impossible to support a family by just writing plays. I believe that this constant financial battle shaped the course of his plays, determining the subject matter of many of his works.

Saturday Night at the Palace was Paul's first major success as a playwright and it certainly put me on the map as a theatre director, with our production touring South Africa for two years before travelling to Ireland, Sweden and having a six-week season at the Old Vic theatre in London.

The play established a style which has become a hallmark of Paul's writing: quintessentially South African characters in situations that are initially highly amusing but gradually become more serious, more moving and, very often, tragic. At the height of the apartheid era this recipe had an exceptional impact, drawing thousands of people into the theatre with the expectation of great entertainment, yet having them leave with more than a little uneasiness about what they had witnessed and how it reflected on their lives in those troubled times.