HE is said to be the third most performed playwright in the UK behind William Shakespeare and Alan Ayckbourn.

So it could be making NHS bosses nervous that John Godber's latest play is about Britain's health service.

But the 60-year-old is keen to point out that This Might Hurt is not a criticism of the NHS but a health check on our overburdened, underfunded lifeline.

"It’s based on personal experience," John told Weekend.

"Twenty-two years ago I had a blood clot that the NHS diagnosed and sorted and in short they saved my life.

"But at the other end of the scale, two years ago my auntie unfortunately encountered poor end of life care.

"It’s a kind of balance between how wonderful the NHS can be on one hand and how it can let you down on the other hand.

"Especially when you think about how the money is distributed between the top end and the bottom end.

"We need an NHS that is functioning and we need the management to be clearer so that experiences like my auntie went through do not happen.

"Unfortunately it is often at the sharp end where the NHS is fraying.

"Really the play is about supporting the NHS but making it clear that on the ground it’s not always as wonderful as we want it to be.

"This isn’t about knocking the NHS at all. Somebody said to me at one of the performances that it is a reality check-up.

"It’s kind of saying: ‘We think the NHS is great, we think it’s amazing. Obviously we need it and it should be better funded'.

"But at the sharp end, where people are earning £7.20 an hour, maybe they need more money and maybe that would mean their commitment to the job would be better."

This Might Hurt is being performed at the Pyramid on Friday, October 7.

John also said he supported the calls for a dedicated theatre in Warrington but said it was up to the enthusiasm of residents to make it viable.

He added: "I say the more theatres the better but those theatres need funding and they need people to put plays on about Warrington.

"That’s how you make a theatre relevant – you put stuff on that people find they have a connection with.

"I remember years ago bringing Up ‘n’ Under to Warrington as obviously there’s a big rugby league following there."

Sadly it was the death of a friend which turned John into a playwright.

John, who has written more than 50 plays, said: "I found that one of the only ways for me to understand it was to write about it.

"The form I chose was the dramatic form because I was training to be a drama teacher."

Those words eventually became the award-winning play, Cramp, and opened the door for writing for TV on the likes of Grange Hill and Brookside.

He added: "That got me going and then I started writing for TV and then I went to Hull to run Hull Truck Theatre Company and it all went from there.

"Writing a play is my way of understanding the world. The more you do, the better you get so it becomes self-fulfilling.

"You find your voice, you write about things that interest you and you hope that other people find those things interesting."

One of John's biggest successes was one of his earliest plays, 1977's Bouncers, about the UK's drinking culture.

It was influential for its minimal set and rapid pace, shunning the trends at the time for grand sets that took a long time to change in between scenes.

John, from Upton in West Yorkshire, said: "I played a lot of sport and I wanted to communicate a piece of theatre very physically and in a new and exciting way.

"I did Bouncers 40 years ago, it’s still being done today and I’m sure urban nightlife is the same in Warrington as it is in Wakefield and Hull.

"I’ve obviously got an affection for Bouncers and Up ‘n’ Under as they’re the plays that made my name but the plays I personally like are the ones about my family and growing up in a mining village.

"They aren’t necessarily the most commercially successful plays but they mean more to me personally.

"I think theatre in the UK is in a pretty healthy place at the moment. It’s interesting. Whenever there’s austerity and people say theatre’s dying, it kind of pops up again and keeps going.

"The more people that can relate to a play the stronger it is. Escapism has its place but for me plays are all about investigating the society we live in."

- This Might Hurt, starring Robert Angell, Rachael Abbey and Jodie Morley, is at the Pyramid on Friday, October 7. Visit pyramidparrhall.com or call 442345 for tickets.

DAVID MORGAN