Tony Roper, Elaine C Smith and Dorothy Paul on 30 years of theatrical hit The Steamie

At first Roper, who would go on to star as Jamesie on stage and the small screen in Rab C Nesbitt, had his play rejected by every theatre boss in Scotland. As a result, the script lay in in drawer gathering stoor for four long years.

How it finally came to be performed and become a runaway hit is down to incredible luck, even greater imagination, a very clever but intensely demanding director and the smell of an arts council grant which was way more powerful than green Fairy.

Roper reveals it wasn't the desire to produce art, or even come up with a play, but the lure of arts funding which led him to write his piece in the first place. "I'd heard the Scottish Arts Council were offering a grant for a community play and I thought I'd have a go," he recalls. "I wrote it in 10 days, on paper, and with a biro – if I'd had the brain I'd have used pencil that could be rubbed out – but it was all done that quick."

He sent the handwritten script to Morag Fullerton, then of Borderline Theatre company and on the look-out for a community play, but Fullerton decided to pass, maintaining the play had no discernible plot (which was and is the case; The Steamie is essentially about women in headscarves and curlers blethering).

"Morag suggested I bring in a plot line about the theft of a purse or something," says Roper, "but I thought this was a bit false. The Steamie was about chatting. Nothing else."

There's a section in the play which features a tale about mince that is now regarded as a classic monologue. At the time, though, those who read the play said the story about mince was exactly that. And who would want to watch a play centred upon women speaking about their lives?

Undaunted, Roper sent copies of The Steamie to every artistic director in Scotland as well as the two major Scottish television companies, his determination fuelled by the hope he would get the second part of his arts council commission. "But when all the theatre companies rejected it I abandoned the idea. No-one, possibly including me, thought this piece would last for two hours on stage. I never expected to hear anything again."

Then fate played a hand. Fast forward four years and Roper found himself working with Elaine C Smith on BBC Scotland's Naked Video. Clearly, he hadn't scrubbed The Steamie idea from his mind completely because he asked her to read the script.

"I loved it," says Smith. "Don't get me wrong, I didn't think it was the hit of the century. But I did think it was both funny and poignant and had great roles for women."

Yet she felt it to be overly sentimental. To get round this, Smith came up with the idea of adding songs, which would let the play comment on itself, taking away some of the soft soap. Roper agreed and Smith took it to Wildcat Theatre, run by David MacLennan and Dave Anderson. As luck would have it, Wildcat were looking for a play about community life to put on. And again, grant money was available for a slice of working-class life.

Smith asked Anderson to write the songs, which he was delighted to do. Roper's proviso was the songs had to sound of their time. "There was no rock at this period in the 1950s when the play was set." Anderson duly complied. "The songs had to fit the words," says the musician. "There's a section in the play, for example where the women talk about a 'manky hoose', so I wrote a song about working-class pride, taking your turn of the stairs."

But who to cast? The play screamed out for four great performers who could sing. Smith was a stick-on, given her input and talent, but not for the role she fancied as Magrit, the "tenement goddess with a hard life". Roper caused eyebrows to raise the height of a close ceiling when he revealed he wanted Smith – at this time in her twenties and all Farrah Fawcett hair flicks – to play 60-year-old Dolly, "with tackity boots, broken veins and a stickie-oot arse".

Smith wasn't sure at all. "But I eventually went along with his view, just to be part of it."

The production now needed a director, to complete casting and bring it all together. "It was suggested we hire a woman because the play featured women," says Roper. "Now, I had nothing against women directors as such, but pointed out I'd written the play, and I'm not a woman. But really, at this time it wasn't too important. This was just a wee community theatre play. What really mattered was Wildcat wanted the grant money and I wanted the second part of my commission."

Roper had an idea in mind. Former Taggart star Alex Norton had been friends with Roper for years. "We were fishing one day when Tony told me about the idea of writing The Steamie," says Norton. "A few years later he called me up and said Wildcat were going to stage it, and would I be interested in directing. I said to send me the play, and if I felt I could add something to it I would do it."

Norton was giving himself a get-out-of-jail-free card in case he didn't rate his chum's work. "But I read it and thought it would be a smashing wee community play, doing the church and scout halls of Scotland."

That was the height of expectation, and now Norton had to cast the remaining roles. Katy Murphy, says Anderson, was deemed perfect for the part of young hopeful Doreen. "The song Dreams Come True was about Doreen's dream of the new house in Drumchapel. And Katy Murphy's Disney-like soprano voice really lent itself to the tune. She sang like Snow White."

Variety star Dorothy Paul, rather ignominiously, had to audition for the director. "I thought, 'I've some f****** cheek asking this legend to read for me,'" says Norton, "but I just wanted to make sure she was right for Magrit. She read, and then she offered to sing. And she was marvellous. And I now reckoned if we could get her how lucky would we be. The scout halls would be packed out thanks to this star."

Paul wasn't convinced the play would work. But at the time she was desperate to work. "The steamie, to me, represented hardship and desperate times. I couldn't see the fun in that world at all."

Ida Schuster, a Citizens' Theatre stalwart, was perfect for the role of Mrs Culfeathers, the older woman still taking in washing in her seventies. But Norton reveals the casting of Andy, the steamie's attendant, almost wrecked a friendship.

Norton had long been a close friend of the handsome, swaggering actor Freddie Boardley, who'd heard he was a shoo-in for the role. Norton had other ideas. "Andy was somebody who thought the women fancied him. The trouble with Freddie was women really did fancy him. But I wanted a guy who was over the hill. I didn't want love's young dream."

Professionalism over the old pals' act had to be paramount. But Boardley believed his friend had betrayed him and the pair didn't speak again for two years. Didn't Roper think to cast himself in the role? "It wasn't a big part," he offers. "And I thought it best to give it to another actor."

The cast complete, Norton knew his budget would be tighter than a washing line on a dry weekend. But he came up with a masterful idea. "I had worked on an adaptation of Dario Fo's Can't Pay Won't Pay and the director had used cartoonist Malky McCormack for the set design, and it was wonderful. So I called Malky and he was very interested in creating a cartoonish set, whereby the sinks were drawn, with cartoon bubbles above them."

During rehearsals, however, there were signs the play would fold as quickly as the cardboard sets. Norton would go on to play Napoleon twice in his film career but it seems during The Steamie he was already inhabiting the role. He admits he was more than a little demanding of his cast, telling them to do better, to the point of snot and tears.

"There was some of that," says Paul, smiling, "but we all needed pushing. And it worked because during the great rehearsal performances I began to think the play had a chance."

Roper too defends the director. "The thing about The Steamie is you have to be a bit tyrannical to make it work. It's a big beast of a play and it needs to be so precise. It's about getting the minutiae of the personalities across, getting the moves timed to perfection. And as such the actors have to be worked very hard. You can't laugh your way through comedy rehearsals. That's a guarantee of failure."

Despite rehearsals indicating the play was scrubbing up nicely, Roper wasn't convinced his play was funny. "I had no great hopes for it, other than I would now get the second half of my commission. But I thought to myself, 'At least the music is great.'"

The cast battered into shape and the set glued and taped together, the play opened on June 9, 1987, at the Crawford Theatre, part of Jordanhill College. Everyone connected with the show was taken aback at the reaction. "I suddenly realised the laughs were huge, especially the mince story, which would later run for 18 minutes," says Roper. "But my overwhelming feeling was a sense of relief.

"It was only the next day I allowed a smile when the Wildcat secretary called me up and told me the phone was ringing off the hook with people looking to buy tickets."

Roper's play had taken the roof off. It had standing ovations in the likes of Easterhouse and was standing room only in Drumchapel. It would go on to be performed across the world, even translated into Finnish.

Television now lifted a curious head. But was Roper concerned he would kill off his play by letting it go out on the box? "Yes, I did worry about that. And more."

Both the BBC and STV wanted to make The Steamie. "I was working constantly with the BBC at the time, in the likes of Scotch and Wry and it would have made sense for me to go with them. But the BBC only offered a small, ridiculous amount of money. The real problem however was they declared they would bring in a 'proper writer' to write the film version. I said 'Oh, will youse?' And when STV offered a lot more money – and said I could write the script – the deal was done."

The TV film certainly didn't kill the enthusiasm for the stage play. But Roper reveals he turned down the chance to turn The Steamie into a sitcom. "I didn't think it would be believable. I didn't think we'd have the same people turn up at the same steamie stalls every week. And I knew I had something well-loved on my hands. Plus, I was acting fairly constantly at the time and to write a series would have meant some of that time being sacrificed.

"Having said all that, I think if I'd been a proper writer I'd have said yes."

The Steamie moved from the community halls on to the major theatre stages. But Wildcat gave Norton the elbow. And he doesn't know why. "I thought it was unfair," he admits. "I certainly didn't make money from it and then I watched it go on to the likes of the King's and the Glasgow Pavilion. Yet I'd had my first chance to direct a play which would become a part of Scottish theatre history. I'm certainly not bitter."

Norton had certainly captured the essence of the steamie world. The play proved to be a slice of Scotland's socio-economic history, a steamed-up window into a world about to change for ever. "It's a play about community," Norton maintains. "About loss. It's a metaphor for the city itself, about the buildings being pulled down." The director summed this notion up perfectly when at the end of the play Doreen leaves the steamie for the last time, taking a long moment to look around her and reflect.

Roper doesn't agree. He thinks it's a "nice wee play with good songs" but no message. "Maybe I'm too close to it. I was a jobbing actor who just wrote it to get some grant money."

How close was he to the world of the steamie? Roper has been misty about the genesis of the play, this poignant tribute to the city's survivalists. How did he find himself in a world of white tiled walls, choking hot air and life-weary women?

It's been written that he was inspired by his mother, Susie, to scribble down his thoughts. "It's not true," he reveals. "In fact, she thought I was off my nut in writing a play about women washing clothes. I had to tell her it was all about grant money. But later on she was my technical adviser, she told me the order of things in the steamie."

Roper has never been immensely celebratory about his play. You would expect the writer of such a classic to be cock-a-hoop about his incredible achievement, to have a chest like a rooster. Yet while he's downplayed his achievement over the years, today he goes one step further. Rather astonishingly, Roper says he doesn't feel proud of it at all. And when you push him to explain this notion, and how the idea for it seeped into his dark curly head, he comes up with the most unexpected answer.

"I think somebody else wrote it," he says, in soft voice. "You know, I'd never seen a play until I was in drama college. I'd always thought I'd be a labourer. What has emerged with The Steamie is all too unbelievable."

He's speaking figuratively, of course. He's saying the idea somehow seeped into his consciousness. A gift from above. He's being unconsciously self-effacing.

I think.

The Steamie is at the King's Theatre, Glasgow, October 23-November 4, and the King's Theatre, Edinburgh, November 6-11