Listening to a box of records sent by a legendary DJ was the beginning of the unexpected stage success John Peel’s Shed. Chris Price spoke with writer John Osborne, who swapped work at a double glazing firm for showbusiness acclaim.

Before his death in 2004, John Peel’s radio shows were a fixture for music lovers.

The Radio 1 DJ launched the careers of countless artists during his tenure at the station, which began when it launched in 1967.

From psychedelic rock to reggae, he played new music of all genres in his world-renowned slot, and in 2002, devoted fan John Osborne won a competition on Peel’s show for a box of records.

It took eight years for John to listen to them all and inspired a love story about the radio, records and John Peel which became the runaway success of last year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

“John Peel was one of my favourite shows on the radio for a long time” said a quiet and unassuming John.

“He introduced me to new music. I had bland taste when I was growing up but he played bands I had never heard of like the Ramones and the Pixies, where a whole new world existed.

“It was important to me to listen every night. As a schoolboy and then as a student, I would always get my work done and made sure I could listen to John Peel at 10pm. It was a really important relaxing point of my day.”

After forgetting about his prize for a few years, John approached community station Future Radio in his hometown, Norwich, about doing a radio show playing some of the best records from the collection.

They said yes and when a friend of his heard him on air, he suggested turning his radio show into a stage production.

Calling it John Peel’s Shed, what followed were five-star reviews and a complete sell-out run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

A 30-minute version of the show was aired on Radio 4 last year and now John has taken it on a UK tour, arriving at Canterbury’s Gulbenkian Theatre next week.

“I knew it would do well,” said John. “I never worried about it being a disaster.

“The warmth for John Peel and the records he played meant I knew I would get a decent audience, but I didn’t expect the five-star reviews and the full sell-out. I was really overwhelmed.”

In his show, many of the records sent by Peel are played on stage with a record player.

“It is quite personal but funny and interesting,” said John, 30. “I have always been a big radio fan. There is something special about it, yet people don’t really talk about the radio.

“It is part of our down time when we are getting on with something else. It is something not talked about but which most people do.”

As you might expect, John admitted his eight years of listening to records became something of a slog when he got to “the dregs of the collection”.

Yet this show is not John’s first project based on the radio. John Peel’s Shed was partly inspired by John’s debut book, Radio Head: Up And Down The Dial Of British Radio, which told the story of what happened when John decided to listen to a different radio station every day, all day, for a month.

“I was stuck in a boring job doing data entry for a company called Anglia Windows and then I realised I was allowed to wear headphones all day,” he said. “So I just decided to listen to lots of radio.

“There were some shockers. Some local stations were hard to listen to but the main feeling was there was a lot of repetition, especially with the playlists. It was Kings of Leon and Lady Gaga over and over again.

“Also, there were presenters who were too wacky or trying too hard to be funny. Some were very tedious. There were some classic baseball cap-wearing idiots.”

John Peel’s Shed will be at Canterbury’s Gulbenkian Theatre on Tuesday, February 28, from 7.45pm. Tickets £10.50. Box office 01227 769075.