Viv Hardwick talks to part-time lecturer Gordon Steel about his role as a playwright.

PART-TIME lecturer and rising North-East playwright Gordon Steel has absolutely no plans to retire as he approaches 50, but he couldn't ignore the plight of colleagues who took the early route to pottering round the garden and sunny winters in Spain.

"Some people take to retirement like a duck to water, but many I know don't like the idea of having nothing to get up for in the morning and, after a few weeks they end up back at work because they feel out of it. They miss the crack with their mates," explains the man from Eaglescliffe, who teaches drama and performing arts at Stockton's new Riverside College.

As a result, the comedy-drama about a Teessider in retirement, Albert Nobbs, rolled off the production line as Steel's fourth collaboration with Hull Truck Theatre Company.

As writer-director, Steel set himself the difficult task of recruiting three experienced actors to play out a bittersweet plot where Albert hates retirement and his interfering wife Connie comes back from the grave to matchmake between him and her best friend Rose.

Graham Bill (Albert), Pamela Merrick (Connie) and Ruth Carr (Rose) are the actors who agreed to be pensioned off in the production which plays its first North-East date at Hartlepool Town Hall on Wednesday.

Steel says: "I wrote the play because I'd never seen anything about retirement on stage before, and there was just Last Of The Summer Wine on TV.

"People are living longer compared to my dad and they're more affluent. Being 50 is the new 30 and the biggest growth in spending power has come in the 50-plus area. I wanted to discuss the stories I hear about people who want to spend six weeks in Spain and have the time and money to do it," explains Steel.

The lecturer has found a new lease of life in recent years, having created the works A Pair Of Beauties, the Middlesbrough park football comedy Studs, Dead Fish - which won an Edinburgh Festival award - and Like A Virgin, which became a London Weekend Television film.

A sitcom, called Cock And Bull, is being developed for TV and he's recently met with actor-turned-producer Kieran O'Brien - who played Robbie Coltrane's son in Cracker - about writing a short film script.

"I'm delighted to be asked to work with Hull Truck, which has a national reputation and it means my play will be seen all over the country. There is the odd reference to Middlesbrough in places like Tinker's Alley and footballer Wilf Mannion but, in the main, I think retired people from Bristol to Blyth will identify with this," Steel explains.

As for his own place in the pension queue, he enjoys his work with Riverside College youngsters, which provides a wealth of play material, and freely admits: "You don't make a lot of money playwriting. You can make a fortune as a writer, but it's really difficult to make a living."

* Albert Nobbs plays Hartlepool Town Hall on Wednesday, Darlington Arts Centre on April 29-30, Bishop Auckland Town Hall June 4-5, Middlesbrough Theatre June 6-7 and Harrogate Theatre June 12-14.