It was the making of him as a playwright. During the Second World War, he was attached to the Crown Film Unit at Pinewood Studios, writing propaganda documentaries. In his one-man show, he would reminisce about his dad's puckish sense of humour – how, in crowded train carriages, he would demand that his wife, Kathleen, read out detailed news reports of current divorce trials, delighted to imagine his fellow travellers' mortification at every mention of "garments", "stains" and "bloomers". Mortimer wrote and talked obsessively about him his best play was A Voyage Around My Father. His father, perhaps the most important figure in his life, was Clifford Mortimer, a divorce barrister who went blind one day when he hit his head on a tree branch.
He was born in Hampstead, north London, went to Harrow School and read law at Brasenose College, Oxford.
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