In October 1957 he became an assistant stage manager, theatre Painter and general dogsbody to John Bury, the theatre designer, and he went on stage in his first professional role as the Queen's Messenger in the then in rehearsal production of Macbeth. From the Scottish Court to a building site his next performance was as a bricklayer in You Won't Always Be On Top, soon followed by a peasant in And the Wind Blew, Bellie in Pirandello's Man Beast and Virtue, Calisto in De Rojas's Celestina; Young Jodi Maynard in Paul Green's Unto Such Glory (all 1957) and then came the last play of the 1957-58 season which was to be the start of an extraordinary year in the history of theatre workshop and Melvin's career. He was cast as Geoffrey in Shelagh Delaney's play, A Taste of Honey. After the summer break in 1958, he played the title role in the seminal production of Brendan Behan's The Hostage. Both scripts had been transformed in rehearsals by Joan Littlewood's painstaking and inspired methods of getting to the truth of the text and building a lively poetic and dangerous theatrical event. Though both plays were to blow a refreshing wind through the British theatre, neither play transferred to the West End immediately, so Melvin stayed on to play Scrooge's nephew in Joan Littlewood's adaptation of A Christmas Carol (1958).