Hugh Stoddart

Rehearsed reading Coventry Playhouse 1992

A surreal play for three actors, set in a huge basement where clothes are re-cycled.

55 mins. BBC – 2

Cast: Danny Simpson, Jon Croft, Janette Legge
Co-writer / Director / Producer: Colin Gregg

Grierson Award, London Film Festival 1978

An original screenplay, filmed in Cornwall on a tiny budget, then purchased for TV. A young man is faced with conscription, introduced for the first time in 1916.

“A symbolic and sensitive study of individual conscience during the First World War.” Adrian Turner (NFT Programme)

90 mins. BBC Radio. 1986

Cast: Nicholas Farrell & Edward de Souza
Director: Jane Morgan

Based on a novel by George Lee set in the 13th century. A perfect project for radio where distant times and big historical events can be conveyed so easily.

“A strong and convincing radio drama” The Listener

2 x 60 mins BBC–1, 2002, repeated 2005

Cast: Warren Clarke, Colin Buchanan, Dervla Kirwan, & Jack Dee
Director: Patrick Lau
Producer: Ann Tricklebank

Winner of the Midlands RTS Best Drama Award

Based on the “Dalziel & Pascoe” novel by Reginald Hill, this is a “whodunnit” around the theme of revenge.

“Superb” The Observer

Premiere at the Theatre Upstairs, Royal Court, London. 1990
Cast: Jonathan Cullen, Ewan Hooper, Melee Hutton, Susan Brown, John Salthouse
Director (London): Simon Curtis
Director (Belfast) : Stephen Wright

Re-presented the same year by Tinderbox in Belfast, where it was nominated as Best New Play.

The play concerns the killing of three members of the IRA by the British Army in 1988. Based on the work of journalist Ian Jack and additional research by Hugh and members of the company.

“An outstanding example of the theatre’s power to revitalise an event suspended between news and history” Irving Wardle, Independent on Sunday

90 mins. 1986 BBC - 2

Cast: Suzanne Burden, Tom Bell, & Michael Gough
Director: Colin Gregg
Producer: Andrée Molyneux

An original screenplay drawing on Hugh Stoddart’s ten years in the world of contemporary art: a woman artist has to cope with her father’s suicide.

” The sense of loss was everywhere. Difficult to enjoy … impossible to forget.” Gerard Dempsey (Daily Express)

Co-written with Howard Brenton, Brain Clark, Trevor Griffiths, David Hare, Stephen Poliakoff and Snoo Wilson.

Premiered Edinburgh in 1971. Re-staged in London, in Germany and published in the U.K.

“Its sustained view of exploitation … makes Layby a major event of this Festival or any festival.” Nicholas de Jongh, The Guardian

114 mins. 1982 Cinema release U.K / Channel 4

Cast: Gary Oldman, Tim Spall, John Altman & Nick Dunning
Director / Producer: Colin Gregg
Exec.Producer (C4): David Rose

Grand Prize, Taormina Film Festival.
Nominated for Best Screenplay, Evening Standard Awards

An original script: a group of young RN seamen spend their last 24 hours ashore in Plymouth. Although set in peacetime, the film was inspired by the monument there to those “lost at sea” in war.

“An accomplished, original and important movie.” Derek Malcolm (Guardian)

6 X 52 mins. 1992 Channel 4
Cast: Brian Cox, Jane Lapotaire, Sid El Fadil (Alexander Siddig) , Juliet Aubrey
Director: Andrew Grieve
Producer: Brian Eastman (Carnival Films)

A huge story, set in the UK, Israel and Ethiopia, centred on religious faith - its value and its dangers. Based on an idea from the producer (whose previous large scale project was the TV drama TRAFFIK) Hugh embarked on extensive research to create a complex interlocking drama. In the light of “9/11″ and all that has followed, this can be seen as a prophetic work.

“An intelligent and beautiful drama.” Elizabeth Cowley (Daily Mail)

116 mins. 1997 BBC – 1 / PBS. 2004 BBC-4. VHS / DVD
Cast: Emily Watson, Bernard Hill, Cheryl Campbell, & James Frain
Director: Graham Theakston
Producer: Brian Eastman (Carnival Films)
Exec. Producer: David Thompson (BBC)

Nominated Best Single Drama, Writers Guild Awards

Based on the novel by George Eliot, this was a feature length film for TV. It was shown during the New Year season to an audience of 11 million.

“Almost flawless.” David Aaronovitch (Independent on Sunday)

90 mins. 1981 ITV
Cast: Alan Bates & Pauline Moran
Director / Producer: Colin Gregg / Polygram

Based on an early novel by D.H.Lawrence: a married man has a doomed love affair with his violin pupil.

“The Trespasser exploited a rich vein of lyrical sensuousness.” Richard Last (Daily Telegraph)

115 mins. 1983 BBC – 1, repeated twice / PBS. VHS / DVD

Cast: Michael Gough, Rosemary Harris, & Kenneth Branagh
Director: Colin Gregg
Producer: David N Wilkinson
Exec. Producer (BBC): Alan Shallcross

Nominated for a BAFTA Award (Best single drama)

Based on the novel by Virginia Woolf. A family spends a last summer in Cornwall in 1912; ten years on, shattered by war and loss, the survivors return.

“This is a rewarding, richly textured dramatization” Gail Williams (Hollywood Reporter)

A NAÏVE AND SENTIIMENTAL LOVER

An updated adaptation of the 1970 novel by John Le Carré. It is darkly comic and uniquely different from spy novels of the period.

EARTHLY POWERS

An eight part serial for TV based on the novel by Anthony Burgess, who read the script and liked it a lot.

Hugh comments: “This was the last project of the Gregg / Stoddart partnership – the endless attempts to achieve it were a strain. And it haunts me a little that Burgess died with it still unfilmed.”

BURMESE DAYS

An adaptation of George Orwell’s early novel for the cinema, developed with Mike Newell.

BITTER LEMONS

A feature film script freely adapted from Lawrence Durrell’s non-fiction book on the war in Cyprus.

GENOVA

Another feature script: a teenage girl, as a plea to her parents not to part, pretends she has been kidnapped. The plan goes terribly wrong.

91 mins. 1988 Cinema release U.S & UK / Channel 4. VHS

Cast: Alan Bates, Gary Oldman, Max Wall, Liz Smith, & Frances Barber
Director: Colin Gregg
Producer: Tomasso Jandelli

Based on the novel by J.R. Ackerley, set in London just after World War 2. It is a black comedy about a love triangle – between two men and a dog.

Following a cinema release in the U.S, the video continued on sale there for fifteen years.

“Immaculately adapted, this is a self-effacing treasure.” Sheila Benson (Los Angeles Times.)