Teaching
Hugh has been working part-time as a teacher and lecturer for ten years, particularly at Bournemouth University’s pioneering and very successful Media School. This has now, with the adjoining Arts Institute, become one of Britain’s new Screen Academies.
Hugh has worked mainly with third year screenwriting students who opt to write a feature script as their main project: some five or six students are assigned to one tutor who meets with them at intervals from initial treatment to final draft. Since 2003 he has been working with students on Bournemouth’s newly established MA, both on smaller assignments for their first year and on their major feature script in their second year. Most MA tutoring is by distance learning.
This work has enabled him to build up considerable experience in assessing and advising on a wide variety of screenplays.
Hugh had a fundamental understanding of the core themes and purposes of my very personal script. This meant I could trust and follow his guidance with confidence. It was a very happy and fruitful working relationship.
Daniel Sinclair - MA (Bournemouth University): Distinction. Alan Plater Award
Hugh has delivered many lectures both about his own work and about screenwriting. He has run workshops particularly on adaptation; he has taught at the National Film School and run courses for the Arvon Foundation.
In 1999-2001 he worked as a writer for two days a week at HMP Brixton. His main project was to use themes to link the inmates’ work to published writing: he produced a series of anthologies of creative writing - these included excerpts from published authors but mostly writing by the inmates themselves. It became a shared forum.
Hugh comments:
This took me away from the world of film making as there were too many restrictions in the prison for that activity to be achievable. I found the whole experience very rewarding. I think it has fed into my own creative work and also helped my abilities to teach.
Hugh has held Fellowships or Residencies at the Universities of East Anglia, Exeter and, under the Royal Literary Fund scheme, at Sussex.