Charles Wood (playwright)

Though he was born in the British Crown dependency of Guernsey—his parents were actors in a repertory company playing in Guernsey at the time—he left the island with his parents when he was still only an infant. His parents worked as actors in repertory and fit-ups (travelling theatrical groups) mainly in the north of England and Wales and had no fixed place of abode. His education was, until the outbreak of the Second World War, sporadic. The family settled in Chesterfield, Derbyshire, in 1939. The first house they rented was 1 Cromwell Road and the second was 20 Abercrombie Street. He attended St Mary's Catholic Primary School from which he was awarded a Special Place at Chesterfield Grammar School.

At the war's end, the family relocated to Kidderminster in Worcestershire where Charles Wood obtained a place at King Charles I Grammar School. He was by now old enough to work in the theatre managed by his father Jack Wood. This was The Playhouse, later demolished. He worked as a stagehand and electrician and assistant to scenic artists in his spare time at weekends and every night. He also played small parts in the repertory company produced by his father. His mother Mae Harris was a leading actress in the company. In 1948, Wood gained entrance to Birmingham School of Art to study theatrical design and lithography.

Wood joined the Army in 1950, and served five years with the 17th/21st Lancers and seven years on reserve. He was discharged with the rank of corporal, reduced to trooper on entering the Regular Army Reserve.

He married Valerie Newman, an actress, in 1954. She was working in repertory in a theatre at Worcester, the Theatre Royal, once the second oldest working theatre in the country.

On leaving the Army, Wood worked as an electronic wireman at BAC, Filton near Bristol. Later he worked as a scenic artist, layout artist, stage manager in England and Canada. He returned to Bristol with a job in the advertising department at the Bristol Evening Post (at the same time Tom Stoppard was a journalist at the newspaper) until 1963 when he became a full-time writer.[3]

Wood wrote his first play, Prisoner and Escort, in 1959. It was a play for television which was first performed on radio, then on the stage and later on television. Cockade won the Evening Standard Theatre Award for Most Promising New Writer in 1963.

Wood's work is known for its concern with British military life. In his preface to Wood's Plays One, director Richard Eyre commented: "There is no contemporary writer who has chronicled the experience of modern war with so much authority, knowledge, compassion, wit and despair, and there is no contemporary writer who has received so little of his deserved public acclaim." Critics applauded his earliest plays such as Cockade (1963) for the details of military life, and his use of military argot and vernacular. He explored many aspects of contemporary military life. Drill Pig (1964) was a black comedy about a young man who joins the army to escape his civilian life and his wife and her parents. Don't Make Me Laugh exposed military and civilian attitudes through the home life of a sergeant, his wife and their lodger. Death Or Glory Boy (1974) was a semi-autobiographical TV series about a grammar school boy joining the army.

His work also covered warfare during many different periods of British military history. Wood's plays have been described as "pro-soldier and anti-war".[4] He was concerned with the experiences of fighting soldiers rather than patriotism or heroism. Dingo (1967) was a black comedy attacking British myths and cliches about WWII. Wood wrote the script for the film of The Charge Of The Light Brigade (1968) after John Osborne had been sued for plagiarising Cecil Woodham-Smith's The Reason Why.[5] H, Being Monologues at Front of Burning Cities (1969) was a historical pageant about Sir Henry Havelock's military campaign during the Indian Mutiny of 1857. Jingo (1975) was about the fall of Singapore and the symbolic end of British dominance in East Asia. The television film Tumbledown (1988), directed by Richard Eyre, was the story of Robert Lawrence MC, written after many interviews with Robert Lawrence. (Lawrence later wrote his own version of his story called When the Fighting is Over.) Wood wrote an episode of Kavanagh QC ("Mute of Malice", 1997) about an army chaplain traumatised by his experiences in Bosnia. He adapted numerous novels about war into film and television scripts including How I Won the War (1967) from a novel by Patrick Ryan; The Long Day's Dying (1968) from a novel by Alan White; A Breed of Heroes (1994) from a novel by Alan Judd about a young British officer in Belfast; and three episodes of Sharpe.

Many of his works have a semi-autobiographical element, employing his personal and professional life as a writer, working in theatre and movies. Last Summer By The Seaside (1964) was a documentary / cinema verite commentary about the English at play on the beach written and narrated by Charles Wood about his family on their annual holiday visit to his parents on the Isle of Wight. Fill the Stage With Happy Hours (1966) was a comedy about a run-down repertory theatre. A Bit of a Holiday (1969) which starred George Cole as the writer Gordon Maple rewriting a historical screenplay in Rome was inspired by the filming of The Adventures of Gerard.[6] Veterans; or, Hair in the Gates of the Hellespont drew on the filming of The Charge of the Light Brigade with John Gielgud playing a character based on John Gielgud. Has "Washington" Legs? (1978) was written for America's bicentennial celebrations and was another comedy about film-making. A Bit Of An Adventure (1974) was about the life of writer Gordon Maple as played by George Cole. Cole played George Maple again in two series of Wood's sitcom Don't Forget to Write! (1977 and 1979) about the frustrations of a writer's life. Across from the Garden of Allah (1985) was a comedy about an unsuccessful English screenwriter in Hollywood. While Wood remained active in the theatre, a string of television dramas followed in the 1970s. The first of these was also perhaps the strangest: The Emergence of Anthony Purdy Esq, Farmer’s Labourer was an experimental piece starring Freddie Jones and Judy Matheson, about which little else is known, bar that it was made by Harlech, the ITV company for the South Wales and Western England region, and was ITV’s drama entry at the Monte Carlo TV festival. It was not widely networked, which is perhaps unsurprising in light of the comment by The Guardian’s critic Nancy Banks-Smith that it was “completely incomprehensible to anyone east of Somerset”. Because Wood lived in Bristol as his writing career was starting, many of his early works were written about Bristol and also staged there. At that time other rising playwrights such as Peter Nichols and Tom Stoppard lived there. Meals On Wheels (1965) was an experimental satire about provincial conservatism and repression which was to have been performed at the Bristol Old Vic but interference from Bristol Council meant it was rejected.[7] Drums Along the Avon (1967) was a TV play about racial integration in Bristol which had to be broadcast with a disclaimer that "it is a fantasy and we devoutly hope that no one in Bristol will see it otherwise".[8] Wood had submitted Dingo to the National Theatre Company, but the Chamberlain's rejection of licence meant it could not be performed there, so Bristol Arts Centre staged the play under club membership conditions to circumvent censorship.

Wood had productive relationships with leading individuals in the British film and theatre industry. He worked numerous times with Richard Lester. Their first collaboration was on the film The Knack ...and How to Get It (1965) when the producer Oscar Lewenstein recommended Wood write the adaptation.[9] He worked again with Lester on the screenplay for Help! (1965) and How I Won the War (1967), adapted from the Patrick Ryan novel and featuring some of the material from Wood’s play Dingo. His other screenplays for Richard Lester were The Bed Sitting Room (1969), from the Spike Milligan play, and Cuba (1969). Inspired by stories by Yuri Krotkov, Wood wrote for Lester a script about the catastrophes suffered by a Russian actor who bears an uncanny resemblance to Stalin, but when financing fell through it was performed as Red Star by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1984.[10] Wood first worked with the director Richard Eyre when he directed the stage play Jingo (1975). Richard Eyre directed Wood’s television film Tumbledown (1988). Wood cowrote with Eyre the scripts for Eyre’s films Iris (2001) and The Other Man (2008). Wood wrote the screenplays for three films about composers directed by Tony Palmer: Wagner Channel 4 (1983); Puccini Channel 4 (1984); and England, My England Channel 4 ( 1995), completing John Osborne's screenplay about Purcell after it had been abandoned owing to Osborne's terminal illness.

Though Wood's plays are rarely revived, his play Jingo was produced by Primavera at the Finborough Theatre in March 2008, directed by Tom Littler. Jingo, subtitled A Farce of War, is set during the last days of British control of Singapore before the humiliating surrender to the Japanese. Susannah Harker played Gwendoline and Anthony Howell her ex-husband Ian.

• Charles Wood at IMDb
• Works by Charles Wood from Doollee.com
• Charles Wood biography from 625.org.uk