It is surprising to hear an actor as well known and well-loved as Tim Piggott-Smith admit that: “The National Student Drama Festival hung like a dream before me throughout my time as a student at Bristol University.”

In 1964, his first year he gave what he refers to as a “misguided performance” in a small part in The Devils. The production was subsequently not selected for the festival. The next year he wasn’t in the production that was considered. However, he remembers: “In 1966 I really thought we would make it with The Entertainer, in which Archie was brilliantly portrayed by Ian Gardhouse – who later conceived and produced Loose Ends for Radio 4. I played Billy Rice – the father. I had hopes, but we missed out.”

So… how did he ultimately make the final? “Well, I cheated. I left the Drama Department and went to the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, and in 1967 I was asked to play Hero in Anouilh’s The Rehearsal for my old Alma Mater. It was very well acted, costumed and staged, and we made the final in Bradford.” But the final prize still eluded him. “We lost out narrowly to Edinburgh’s The Homecoming – which boasted a young Ian Charleson, and David Rintoul!” So difficult to feel too aggrieved. Especially when the Homecoming’s director Peter Farrago - “a born impresario,” Piggott-Smith recalls, put together a cast from the talent at the Bradford NSDF to performed “Mandrake, The Musical” by Mike Alfreds at the next Edinburgh Festival: “It included Ian, David, myself, and David Edgar as the Apothecary. Twenty years later, I played the lead in David’s wonderful play Entertaining Strangers (directed by Peter Hall), at the National.”

“In The Rehearsal was an actor with whom I performed recently in Hecuba at the Donmar - Nicholas Day. We also did The Iceman Cometh together. In our student days, Nick gave the finest Soliony I have ever seen. In Bradford, we were in the canteen together, when a young girl came in who took our breath away - Judy Loe: she played my wife, when I was The Chief [Anglia TV, 1989-91].”

It is immediately obvious, the esteem and affection in which he holds the Festival:

“I think you get the picture. The NSDF was a seedbed. People keen on theatre met up, and wallowed in Drama for five days. It was competitive. It was exciting. And it created relationships that run like threads through the fabric of our profession.

And I still think The Entertainer should have made it.”

Editor's choice

• The 100 Best Films of 2008
• Hitler and the Downfall mash-ups
• Britney Spears: The Circus