Those who thought that Q was something you did while waiting for a bus have obviously not hung out at a nightclub lately.

It's the darkly-bespectacled bookworm lurking in the corner that's Q; the man pushing pamphlets into your hand when what you want is a drink.

For the last five years or so, club-goers have found him harder to avoid than Ecstasy - although his is an influence vastly more benign.

The extrovert West Indian is a writer for people who didn't know they wanted to read; a playwright for audiences who have never been to the theatre.

He wrote a novel called Deadmeat and printed it himself, because it fell between publishing stools like a game of musical chairs. Now, with the encouragement of the West Yorkshire Playhouse, he has turned it into a performance piece - part theatre, part Internet.

Deadmeat is, on the face of it, a conventional yarn: Clarkie, a young Jamaican just out of prison for an offence committed by his brother, tries to regain his place in society but finds the old order has gone. In particular, his brother has become a virtual overlord in a multimedia world played out on the Internet.

But if the plot is conventional, the narrative is not. Rooted in a new world of rap, dance and drugs, it is unfamiliar, alien even, to traditional audiences. Jude Kelly, the Playhouse's artistic director who is overseeing the project personally, will turn the theatre space into a thumping, pulsing cyber-nightclub, where the text on the computer screens is as relevant as the lines on the actors' scripts.

Q - that's what he's been called since he was at school in Cricklewood, north London, and he doesn't answer to much else - sees himself at fiction's cutting edge.

"When I first did Deadmeat, publishers were not catering for a younger, diverse audience. They were happy with their established list and they didn't feel that anyone else could produce an audience for them or make money.

"So I printed and typeset it myself and took it to nightclubs in London, and distributed it the same way people used to do with music.

"Then I went further afield - Southampton, Birmingham, and then mail order. I thought, let the people decide."

They did. People wanted to read Deadmeat, and eventually an international publisher picked it up, believing it was on to the Next Big Thing. Q recorded an audio version, mixing the text with music, and theatre seemed a logical extension to the premise.

"Clubs are themselves theatrical," he says. "The DJ is the performer and the narrative is the music he plays. People are prepared to pay £15 two or three times a week and travel out of town to these kind of parties - and that must be because neither television nor the theatre is providing them with social references they can identify with. That's why they create their own."

Q and Jude Kelly tap-danced around each other before deciding that the trust was there to form a working relationship. "When she approached me I was surprised and apprehensive," says Q, "but as I got to know her, that all went.

"It's an investment for me, you see. I invest a lot of money in my own ideas. It's a shorter, quicker route than just waiting - and the best person to invest in is always yourself."

He insists he couldn't give a damn what the critics make of Deadmeat, but urges audiences to go with an open mind.

"At the end of the day," he says, "I've always made my own way and done my own thing. But I've always striven for quality."

Deadmeat is at West Yorkshire Playhouse from May 21 to June 5. Tickets are bookable on 0113 213 7700.

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