Charles Wood

‘Prisoner and Escort’ was Charles’s first play based on a duty that occasionally came his way in the army (he had been a regular soldier). Charles wrote it for television.It was first done as a radio play on the Third Programme, then as a stage play as part of a triple bill of his plays at the Arts Theatre under the title ‘Cockade’ (‘Prisoner and Escort’, ‘John Thomas’, ‘Spare’) all directed by Patrick Dromgoole and put on by Michael Codron (Evening Standard Award, 1963).  Eventually, ‘Prisoner and Escort’ reached the medium for which it was first written, when it won a prize for the director, one Phillip Saville.

‘Dingo’ was Charles’s first full-length play for the theatre. It was called ‘I Don’t Hold With Heroes’ until the National Theatre (at the Old Vic) decided they wanted to do it and Ken Tynan suggested the title change. In the end he and Olivier gave up trying to get a license for it (regarded as “subversive” by the Lord Chamberlain). At last ‘Dingo’ gets on at Bristol and the Royal Court (turned into a club to avoid the Lord Chamberlain).

His play ‘Veterans’ won an Evening Standard Award in 1972. In Charles’s words: “My only real success in the theatre, due to John Gielgud.”

‘The Knack’ was Charle’s first screenplay, based on Anne Jellicoe’s play. He was asked to do it by Woodfall, in the shape of Oscar Lewenstein. He had seen ‘Cockade’, as had Lindsay Anderson who was the putative director. In the end it was directed by Richard Lester and won the Grand Prix at Cannes. He wrote and rewrote a lot of films for Richard. Among those, which didn’t reach the screen, were ‘Flashman and Petulia’ (not in his version).

His Future Projects envolve a stage play about Gallipoli, project with Chris Kelly who is looking into the possibility of a television play about Elgar based on a book about his last years and a young Jewish violinist said to be his last “muse”, project with Tony Palmer who is hoping to get together a film about Maria Callas and a project with Estelle Daniels who is thinking about something to do with ‘Hogarth’ (Charles’s unproduced screenplay ‘Rakewell’).