Show business or medicine? The dilemma that has persisted throughout Jonathan Miller’s working life is evident in the very first cutting on him in the library here at Newspaper House. It is contained in an envelope file labelled — comical as it seems, for Miller is nearly 80 — “Miller, Jonathan, Cambridge student”.

Dated June 1954, the cutting refers to the offer of a part for Miller in the London revue Cockles and Champagne on the strength of his performance in the Cambridge Footlights show Out of the Blue, which had just been seen at Oxford Playhouse. “Sorry, not interested,” he had said. “I’m going to be a doctor.”

And a doctor he became. But after two years as a hospital house officer, he saw his life transformed with the success of the Edinburgh Festival show Beyond the Fringe which made household names of its stars. Besides Miller, these were Alan Bennett, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. From then on, theatre and opera became the centre of Miller’s working life, during which he directed some of the greatest names in the business. Every reader of The Oxford Times will know this of Sir Jonathan (a title he dislikes hearing, though he accepted it in 2002). They will know, too, of his reputation as a curmudgeon. This might perhaps be more tactfully expressed by calling him a man of firm beliefs which he is fearless in expressing. This was evident in an interview concerning his work on the play Rutherford and Son, which Northern Broadsides is bringing next week to the Playhouse. “It’s the grumpy bastard speaks again,” he observes self-mockingly at the end of one diatribe.

Set in a northern glassworks, the play focuses on a tyrannical patriarch — portrayed by Northern Broadsides’ founder Barrie Rutter — who places the company’s success and his social position over everything, including his children’s hopes and happiness.

Premiered in 1912, it was at first thought to be the work of a man. When it was discovered to be from the pen of a woman, Githa Sowerby, some critics withdrew their favourable reviews. The National Theatre, which revived it in 1994, considers the play one of the best 100 of the 20th century. Miller rates it highly, too. “I like its naturalism, that it is unpretentious and not packed with silly concepts. It’s a straight account of a rather dysfunctional family. It’s as good as Ibsen or Chekhov. Every bit the match of The Cherry Orchard.”

He was unaware of the play’s existence until he was asked to take charge of it by Rutter, whom he had directed many years ago with the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford. “I’m rather ignorant. I don’t do go to the theatre and don’t read much about it. I don’t enjoy watching theatre. What I like with theatre, as with opera, are the practical tasks of it. I like it for the same reason I studied medicine; I’m interested in the nature of action. The skills of medicine and theatre are totally alike.”

“Barrie Rutter rang me and sent me the book. I read and liked it and said I’d do it. Ageism operates in theatre. I don’t get asked to direct often. I have nothing to do with the celebrity world. I don’t schmooze or go to first nights to air kiss in the foyer.”

He says he hasn’t been been asked to do anything at the National Theatre (he calls it “Brent Cross Shopping Centre by the Thames”) since last directing there 35 years ago. He had been an associate director their under Lord Olivier but famously fell out with his successor, Sir Peter Hall.

Would he like to return? “I would. There would be some recognition that I am not demented. I’m nearly 80, but I am as sharp and clear to direct as I ever was, in fact even better. I have seen the whole range of human life.

“It’s all to do with celebrity now, though. I did a good Hamlet at the Tobacco Factory [in Bristol]. It couldn’t go to London because the Hamlet at the time had to be the person playing Doctor Who [David Tennant for the RSC]. But we had as good a production. I was disappointed for the cast. I am fed up with the business. I can’t bear the world of critics; I can’t bear schmoozing. It’s repulsive to me.”

Returning to the happier topic of Rutherford and Son he says: “I am very proud of this production. It’s a brilliant play and it’s wonderfully acted. Rutter is one of the best actors in England and he ought to have been honoured for having run Northern Broadsides for 20 years.

”I don’t have to do very much as director, unlike some of my younger directors — poltroons — who every night give sheaves of notes to the actors. I might come to see it in Oxford. But I don’t need to. If it’s a good production, the actors get better whether you are there or not. If it’s a bad one, there is nothing you can do about it.”

Rutherford and Son is at Oxford Playhouse from Tuesday to Saturday March 2. Box office: 01865 305305, www.oxfordplayhouse.com