A play about a Jewish family's life after a nuclear war is being staged in London this month - 20 years after it was written by actor Julian Sims.

Mr Sims, 48, from Hackney, was inspired by a trip to the Crimea, where he was in a television series. He tells People: "I came back to London and wrote the first draft of the play in 12 days."

The play, Apartment 2010, won him a bursary and a job as writer in residence for a theatre company. But it has never been staged until this production, which is on at the White Bear Theatre in Kennington until April 25.

The play features a neurotic American Jewish family's attempts to escape from the Ukraine to Israel, despite falling foul of the Mafia. "I was brought up on Woody Allen and there's a lot of that in my work."

Although he is halachically Jewish, Mr Sims had a secular upbringing: "But my comedy comes from the completely irrational behaviour of my Jewish mother."