For people of a certain age — and that includes the present writer — Liverpudlian Roger McGough will for ever be thought of as a pop star. He was one of the members of the trio The Scaffold — the others were Mike McGear, brother of a certain Paul McCartney, and John Gorman — who scored three big hits, including the No 1 Lily the Pink.

By the time of his late 1960s fame, he was already notable as a poet and writer, who had made a considerable contribution (uncredited) to the screenplay of The Beatles’ film Yellow Submarine. In the decades since he has gone on to write many books of poetry; he read from the latest, As Far As I Know, at the Oxford Literary Festival two weeks ago.

The festival was a double-date for Roger. Another strand to his writing career was showcased when the latest of his children’s books, An Imaginary Menagerie, featured at a children’s event there.

Next week, Oxford Playhouse offers an opportunity for audiences to assess a more recent aspect to his creative life, his work as a translator. His new version of Molière’s The Misanthrope will be performed there from Tuesday by English Touring Theatre, under director Gemma Bodinetz.

Given the populist nature of his work, might not a version of a play by a 17th-century French court dramatist sound a little, er, highbrow, for his traditional audience? He laughs, and adds with self-deprecating wit: “What, when my name is up there!”

In fact, this play specifically has a recent reputation for supplying entertainment for the masses. It was successfully revived in the West End in 2009, with screen star Damian Lewis in the central role of the acid-tongued poet Alceste and the equally stellar Keira Knightley as the woman he loves — a less than suitable match, since Célimène is a pampered, flirtatious celebrity of precisely the sort he says he cannot stand.

The success of this revival had initially proved a disincentive to Roger, who had previously translated two other Molière plays, Tartuffe and The Hypochondriac, for Gemma Bodinetz and the Liverpool Playhouse. Would another version be welcomed so quickly? He looked instead at Dom Juan, School for Wives. Le Bourgeois Gentihomme and The Miser — “but the engine wouldn’t start”.

“Then Gemma pointed out that The Misanthrope was considered Molière’s finest play and that, by the time our version hit the boards, Keira and Damian would be gracing pastures new. And so it proved. Again I picked up my quill and hoisted the tricolour.”

Roger approaches his translations with the signal advantage of a degree in French. (Certain other ‘translators’ — no names, no packdrill — polish up the text from literal translations supplied by others. He studied the language at Hull University (whose librarian, Philip Larkin, proved useful in his career as a poet).

In Tartuffe — which featured Colin Tierney, next week’s Alceste, in the title role — he hit upon the technique of varying the verse forms to suit the characters of the play’s principal figures. This got away from the monotony of Molière’s plodding 12-syllable rhyming couplets (Alexandrines).

“When I set about The Hypochondriac I was going away on a Saga cruise [he entertains on board] and took the original prose translation with me to work from. I did a few scenes with the same approach to poetry as before. When I went home and read the Molière, I realised he’d done it in prose.”

But Roger stuck to his poetry and the play proved another hit.

In The Misanthrope, the same technique is adopted, with great success to judge from the performance heard a couple of weeks ago on BBC Radio 3.

“I was pleased with it,” says the writer. “I resisted the temptation of trying to be too funny. It is Molière, after all. “When I was younger, I wouldn’t have had the courage to attempt it. You have to have confidence to alter things. Molière, as a court dramatist, had a lot of people who had to have a part written for them. “There were three servants, for instance, with one line each. That’s been trimmed to one.”

Roger promises a treat for the eyes as well as the ears. Unlike the Lewis/Knightley version, which shifted the action to the present day, Alceste’s one-man crusade against forked tongues and fakery is presented in the period of its writing, with the colourful and lavish costumes of the time.

By coincidence, theatregoers have a chance from next week to see another of Molière’s plays. The Miser, in a new version by Martin Sherman, is staged at the Watermill Theatre from Thursday until May 18.

Oxford Playhouse From Tuesday to next Saturday. Box office: 01865 305305 (oxfordplayhouse.com)