The Sunday Telegraph theatre critic John Gross recently recommended that "if you want a completely satisfying theatrical experience, you should go to see Tales from Hollywood at the Donmar Warehouse - and leave at the interval". Mr Gross's point was that Christopher Hampton's play, first seen in 1983, was well worth reviving - but took "a downward plunge" in the second half.

I wouldn't be at all surprised: many plays begin well, show ominous signs of strain after half an hour or so, and by the time the interval arrives, have clearly run out of steam, just like much of the audience. Haven't you often heard your drama-loving friends telling you how they enjoyed the early part of a production - "but I left at the interval"? (while others take a downward plunge to the basement bar and do not resurface until the play is over).

It is hardly fair to lay the blame for the situation entirely at the feet of the playwright, who by definition is an artist, true only to his craft and (rightly) without the slightest concern for the demands or desires of an audience. But the whole interval business needs to be re-thought. I had a word about this the other night with the eminent dramaturg and interval expert Prof Pilchard H. Kungheiser.

He was scathing about the demands made on today's playwrights: "Because of the positioning of the interval at the central point of the play, focus is necessarily lost. Few members of an audience can think beyond the interval - indeed, some think of nothing else. This communicates to the players on stage, who inevitably lose heart and perform lethargically in the latter half of the play."

The professor dismissed the notion that mood-altering substances imbibed by audience members during the interval played any major part in their perceptions: "It just makes them a bit more keen on realistic fight scenes, that's all, so we tend to keep these for the second act."

Prof Kungheiser points out that not very long ago most plays consisted of three acts, with two intervals. Surely that made things even more problematic?

"Quite the contrary: our research shows that audiences relaxed a lot more in the first interval, knowing there was another to come. By the time it arrived, some people were so relaxed they weren't sure if it was the first or second interval. So they hung on. Nowadays, people just don't have the time."

In theory, Prof Kungheiser is in favour of having no interval at all, but he believes it impracticable, as the Irish cultural tradition unfortunately rates "the break" too highly: "We are a heavily intervallic society," he sighs.

The professor and his team have been researching the problem for some years now, experimenting with intervals of different lengths (and audiences of different tolerances) but have yet to come up with any working solution.

Asked politely for my own views, I suggested that perhaps a play might open with an interval. Prof Kungheiser's jaw dropped open in astonishment.

I quickly apologised for my contradiction in terms, but the professor brushed away my apologies and insisted that I had hit on a philosophical solution.

While the experts are working on my inadvertent breakthrough - I believe they are going to recommend the concept of a one-hour interval followed by a 15-minute play, which they are confident will be greatly popular - I myself have a new project under way.

Fired by the professor's enthusiasm for my idea, I am developing the thing that bit further. My latest play will actually consist of the interval! That is to say, the audience will arrive at the theatre (no doubt in a high state of excitement) and go straight to the refreshments area (i.e. the bar). There they will behave as normal, standing about chatting, drinking, nibbling, pointing out the various celebrities in attendance.

The interval-play (as it will doubtless be called) will thus grow organically and change radically with each "performance", depending on the make-up of the audience-players (As you see, a whole new language will come into play, and not before time. The dated notion of a pre-written script will disappear).

Among some, there may be a certain degree of self-consciousness that they, the audience, are also the players. The more accomplished, however, will doubtless return night after night, their confidence growing as the interval-play becomes a word-of-mouth hit. This one will run and run.