The actor and director who commissioned Harold Pinter’s first play The Room 60 years ago has revealed details of the long friendship they enjoyed since they were schoolmates at Hackney Downs in the 1940s.

Henry Woolf recalls his association with the playwright in his newly memoir Barcelona Is In Trouble and he also appears in a performance of Spider Love, inspired by Pinter’s early years, at the British Library tomorrow.

Mr Woolf, who is 87, taught drama for many years in Canada and has appeared in Dr Who.

During the 1960s, he helped his friend by loaning his Kentish Town bedsit for Pinter to conduct trysts with the arts broadcaster, now Dame, Joan Bakewell. The love affair inspired one of the most famous Pinter plays, Betrayal.

“I had to be out when they were in,” Mr Woolf told the Observer. “ I found myself taking long bus rides to places like Plumstead… I didn’t mind. Harold had helped me out often enough in the past; now it was my turn.”