Chronology

(Note: stage plays appear in CAPITALS; films/televised plays are in italics.)

1931 – Harauld Hughes is born in Cardiff to Ophelia Hughes, a former missionary.

1932 – Hughes is taken to London by his ‘Uncle’ Clifton, known in the Elephant as ‘Monkey’ Perch. But Perch, dissolute, is unable to care for the boy and in any case has his own twins, Colin and Mickie, to look after. Hughes is encouraged to start primary school five years early and is looked after by various teachers.

1939 – Start of the Second World War. Hughes offers to enlist but is evacuated to Ipswich, which is its own kind of war. Went to Whepstead briefly, before running away to volunteer at RAF Martlesham. Stayed on as a junior officer, making tea and running errands.

1940 – Hughes made an honorary junior officer at the RAF base in Martlesham. He helps to develop sonar technologies by offering to fetch whatever’s needed.

1945 – End of the Second World War. Hughes receives a full military discharge and moves back to London.

1946 – Hughes becomes a landlord for the first time, taking ownership of a flat near Elephant and Castle.

1954 – Hughes marries Felicity Stoat. Two years his senior, she is an established rep actress. Hughes acts under the name Monty Boat. He and Stoat have a son, Bartholomew.

1955 – Stoat cast as Boudicca in the British series Boudicca the Brave. Hughes cast in the supporting role of Brynlee, illegitimate brother of King Prasutagus. Leslie Francis directs some of the episodes, meeting Hughes for the first time.

1956 – Leslie Francis wins a Scottish BAFTA for his short film Hail to Thee, O Carrot!

1959 – Hughes’s THE SITTING-DOWN DOOR (A PLAY WITHOUT WORDS) debuts at Swansea University. The student newspaper reviews it and gives it a favourable notice. The play shows ‘pockets of promise’.

1960 – PLATFORM, directed by Leslie Francis, opens in the West End. The producer is Mickie Perch, though he is not involved artistically. The play receives poor notices and loses money. Harauld signs a ten-picture contract with The Anglers Production Company (which Mickie runs with his brother Colin) to offset some of the incurred loss. The accounting for this ‘Recoupment’ is entirely at Mickie’s discretion.

1961 – TABLE opens in Guildford. It is a modest success but doesn’t transfer.

1962 – ROAST and ROOST open at the Royal Court. The plays run for the rest of the year.

Hughes and Stoat move into a grand six-storey house in St John’s Wood. The property is owned by Mickie Perch and rented to Hughes and Stoat in lieu of Perch’s continued support for Hughes’s theatrical endeavours. Perch regrets to inform Hughes that because of the high cost of the property, The Recoupment will have to be deferred until Hughes can afford to buy the property outright, which is not possible because the house is not for sale.

Hughes says he feels lost in north London and loses a stone in two weeks just by going up and down the stairs. Stoat loves the house and says she’ll never leave. She never does (until she is later sectioned).

Hughes writes the poem ‘Woods’, though it is not about St John’s Wood; ‘It’s about itself.’

1963 – Hughes is contracted to do uncredited script ‘doctoring’ on It’s a Ruddy Racket!, directed by Leslie Francis. The film is critically acclaimed, though Hughes’s (low) fee goes towards The Recoupment.

1964 – FLIGHT cements Hughes’s move away from the Royal Court. Staged outside with no audience, it is not a financial success. The Recoupment starts to accrue interest. In desperation, Hughes allows Perch to pitch a TV adaptation of his theatrical works.

1965 – The Harauld Hughes Half-Hour Play debuts on British television. Owing to a national transport strike that leaves people stranded at home, the first episode, Platform, is seen by nearly half the country. The series receives wide acclaim, and Hughes becomes a publicly recognised figure. Hughes writes two new television-only plays, Prompt and the shorter piece Shunt.

1966 – The Swinging Models, scripted by Hughes, directed by Ibssen Anderssen and produced by Mickie Perch, is released and becomes a ‘hit’. It is notable for being the first English film to feature a woman saying the word ‘shit’. Despite the revenues generated, Hughes’s share of the profits is negligible and entirely swallowed up by The Recoupment.

1967 – The Especially Wayward Girl, scripted by Hughes, is another collaboration with Anderssen and Perch. It does less well than The Swinging Models, but still makes a healthy profit. An ‘unforeseen tax burden’ means that Mickie Perch has to freeze any possibility of reducing The Recoupment for another seven years.

1968 – The Model and the Rocker completes The Models Trilogy. It is a commercial success, though a plateau, artistically.

1969 – The Terrible Witch is released. It starts a cycle of rip-off films, including The Even More Terrible Witch and Son of a Witch, to which Hughes contributes uncredited material. Leslie Francis’s And …?! is given a special jury award at the Berlin Festival for Most Innovatively Punctuated Film.

1970 – The Awful Woman from Space sees Hughes explore a new milieu, ‘soft SF’.

1971 – Hughes works on the screenplay for Harlem Shuttle, about an inner-city badminton team. The film is not made.

1972 – Hughes writes DEPENDENCE. He receives an honour for creating the Year’s Longest Play in Proportion to Its Script. The Times describes it as ‘more pause than play’ and ‘spectacularly hermetic’. It is his last work for the stage.

1973 – The Deadly Gust, Hughes’s self-reflective meditation on the nature of writing. A succès d’estime, Ibssen Anderssen declares it to be his favourite of his collaborations with Hughes. The film loses money, leading to an increase in The Recoupment deficit.

1974 – The Glowing Wrong, a satirical attack on both church and state. On the penultimate day of its shoot, Ibssen Anderssen is discovered in his flat, unconscious after an overdose of antihistamines. Leslie Francis completes the last day’s shooting of The Glowing Wrong and takes over the edit. The film is a success. Francis receives a co-directing credit.

1975 – Hughes goes through the whole year without writing, instead throwing himself into badminton. He appears in an advert for an insurance company that has the tagline: ‘You handle the drama, we’ll handle the insurance.’ His considerable fee goes some way to offsetting The Recoupment, but he is still far from breaking even.

1976 – Hughes and Lady Virginia Lovilocke compete in a charity badminton tournament. The two become lovers.

Hughes works on the screenplay of O Bedlam! O Bedlam!, which is to be directed by Leslie Francis. Hughes moves out of the marital home. Lady Lovilocke tells her husband Langley that she’s fallen in love with Hughes. Langley understands completely. The two men meet to discuss their good taste.

Felicity Stoat learns of the affair and begins to make a fuss. Hughes moves into Mickie Perch’s Soho apartment.

Principal photography starts on O Bedlam! O Bedlam! Leslie Francis has a heart attack during production. Filming is halted, and the rushes are seized by the insurance company.

1977 – With the help of Langley Lovilocke, Hughes mounts a legal challenge against The Anglers’ financial practices. The London offices of both Colin and Mickie Perch are raided. Hughes suffers a mini-stroke after a fight with Mickie. Hughes and Mickie part ways and will never speak again. Colin Perch attempts to drown himself in the sea but finds it too cold to go through with it. His search for a sea warm enough to contemplate death takes him to Barbados.

Ibssen Anderssen is discovered, dead, in his flat. The coroner’s report rules the death to be accidental, but rumours abound of foul play.

1980 – Langley Lovilocke commits suicide, and Felicity Stoat is sectioned, leaving Hughes and Lady Virginia free to marry.

1982 – Thanks to the intervention of the Lovilocke estate, Hughes finally recoups.

1983 – Hughes writes a new poem but loses it in Belarus. Felicity Stoat commits suicide.

1986 – Hughes receives the Euripides Prize. He writes his first new piece for the theatre in nearly fifteen years, SPEECH.

1990 – The publication of The Collected Prose and Poetry of Harauld Hughes.

1991 – Hughes starts to write DISSIDENCE and PROVIDENCE, a seven-second diptych protesting the Gulf...