David Ambrose’s fascination with the world of entertainment began aged five sitting under the stairs of an isolated rural cottage, listening to the radio. He realised there was a life out there beyond anything on offer in bleak post-war Lancashire. His enthusiasm for theatre and film failed to be derailed by a law degree from Oxford, where his first plays were performed while he was still an undergraduate.

Three years later he was sitting with Orson Welles and Laurence Harvey shooting a major Roman epic for which he had written the screenplay. An international career followed, taking in theatre, films, and eventually a series of mind-bending novels which have been described as ‘Hitchcock meets Hawking’.

Fifty years on Ambrose is still trying to work out how it all happened to that kid under the stairs with his radio.

A Fate Worse than Hollywood is his attempt at an answer.