On April 27, some time after 9pm, Brighton's Ed Harris will become the first person to make a woman orgasm on Radio 4.

The young playwright, at least, has no proof of this. But going by the station's stereotypical demographic and the fact that tonight's Friday Play sees a woman "waiting to hear whether her Primary Care Trust will agree funding for treatment", it's not the wildest of claims.

Starring Robert Webb as a man whose office crush takes an unexpected turn, Porshia will open Radio 4's new Friday night series, Sex For Adults, and should expose the young writer to an audience of thousands.

Harris has been working with the station ever since the commissioning editor saw his The Cow Play performed at the Nightingale last year. And on Sunday he will return to the Brighton venue with his latest work, Never Ever After, the winner of a competition by regional touring company Chalkfoot Theatre. Another Harris play, Lucy, is being performed on Monday and Tuesday at the Pavilion Theatre (see ACT profile on page 9).

The 26 year old is very much a man of the moment. And though a drama A-Level, a RADA playwriting course and a childhood appearance miming in his gymslip on Bodytalk have no doubt played their part, he attributes his blossoming career to "an accidental meeting and a drunken promise".

It was while gigging as a stand-up poet in 2002 that Harris met Andrea Brooks, a 40-something local director who found it "exciting and hard to believe someone 20 years younger, a scrawny beach cleaner, could be discussing concepts and emotions she had thought were quite exclusive to her".

Brooks asked if Harris was interested in writing for the theatre.

"I was drunk so I went, All right, I'll give you a play, give me three weeks!,'" he recalls.

"A year later I had the first draft. It's trickier than it looks. Playwriting can be soul crushingly hard."

Harris' first effort, Sugared Grapefruit, was read as part of the Old Vic New Voices season in 2003, and later at the Theatre Royal.

He has also been a writer-in-residence at Chichester Festival Theatre, where his short play, Gogol's Nose, was performed in promenade by members of the 2005 ensemble.

"I'm dyslexic, so as a kid growing up language was quite a struggle," says Harris. "After I'd put in all the hard work to learn English, I just had this vast backlog of stuff I wanted to say to, or at, people."

Never Ever After is the story of Silva and Miles, a mother and son whose rural home is threatened by the building of a leisure centre.

Because Miles has learning difficulties and was bullied as a child, Silva has kept her son at home, protecting him with homespun fairy tales which hide the true nature of the world around them. But Silva's health is failing, and before long the pair will need to face reality.

"It is absolutely not worthy,"

emphasises Harris with a chuckle, "and it's not an issues' play. I just wanted a character with the mental age of a 12 year old, and we couldn't use a 12 year old because they can't go on tour.

"It's fun, and very frank, and its full of secreted poetry."

  • Starts 7.30pm, tickets £8.50/£6.50. Call 01273 709709.