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I write plays & films.

Contact me or join my mailing list here.

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BREAKING NEWS:

My film JOE premieres online. View it on Vimeo now.

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All my projects can be viewed here.

My plays have been professionally staged all around the world: in Wales,
Edinburgh, Finland, Denmark, New York City and London.

I'm published by Oberon Books, Nick Hern Books and Dramatists Play Service
(USA).

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RECENT NEWS: My play Seanmhair is to be published by Oberon Books.

Some press for Seanmhair:

'Grips its audience by the throat... bordering on perfection.'
- The British Theatre Guide

‘A striking new work’
– The Stage

'An electric new play on the dangerous immediacy of falling in love... this
isn't a gentle, reflective play about a mundane relationship. It's a cable
downed in a hurricane, thrashing and sparking in the wet and windy street...
Seanmhair is an exciting, volatile new play deserving of wider audiences'
- Fest Magazine

'A strikingly staged tale of love, loss and emergent womanhood'
- The List

'Gripping from the off... This piece packs a punch, it’s a heady mix of bleak
reality and hissing poetry, travelling at a hundred miles an hour... this
writing is infectious, occultist and highly addictive.'
- TheateFullStop

'What makes Seanmhair such an enduring piece of theatre is the sheer beauty and
intensity of its writing… Seanmhair is, at its core, a carefully crafted piece
of music. And not a note is put wrong'
- Critically Speaking

‘Hywel John’s very fine play… A great piece of theatre art.’
– Theatre in Wales

‘Hywel John’s raw and poignant script… a thought-provoking and innovative
production… This play was one of the most unforgettable I have seen, one that
has stayed with me for days and has spurred me to think about its central
messages. This does not happen very often in theatre.’
– Arts Scene in Wales

‘An astonishing script… as rich as a novel in the imagery it mines. With a pen
as spare and sharp as a caricaturist’s’
- Culture Colony

For more details on the play see here.

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And in other news...

June 2016: My play Rose nominated for the prestigious Reumert Awards in Denmark.

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Other good things said about my work:

“Hywel John's subtle and compelling script… tremendous fun with this exuberant
and idiosyncratic language”
- Fiona Mountford, EVENING STANDARD

“Delicious wordplay”.
- Jo Caird, FESTMAG

“Exquisitely nuanced…Hywel John's first play is a fascinating piece, always
gripping, often very funny, beautifully paced.”
Victor Hallett, THE STAGE

“A well-crafted, winning new play”
Dominic Cavendish, THE TELEGRAPH

“It’s psychological surety will leave you in pieces”
Alfred Hickling, THE GUARDIAN

"In the best tradition of modern British theatre: daring, frightening, and
deeply human."
Ben Trawick-Smith, NYTHEATRE.COM

“Sublime”
- THREE WEEKS

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For all enquiries, please contact me via my agent, Nick Quinn at The Agency.


Or...








JOE


JOE: one men

A wild, genre-breaking experimental short that explores the boundary where live
performance meets the intimacy of film, diving into the multiplicity and mayhem
of a modern Everyman:

Joe might just be an Average Joe, but after a life changing encounter in a north
London pub, he realises he might be more than he ever imagined.

Based on my original play Joe

Directed & Written by Hywel John

Starring Joseph Thompson.

Produced by Final Chapter Productions.

Contact my agent Nick Quinn at The Agency for a copy of the film or information
regarding distribution rights.





January 2017 Filed under Short Film 


The Wales Window
And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as
ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto
me.





On September 15th 1963, a small splinter group of the Ku Klux Klan, the Cahaba
Boys, planted a box of dynamite beneath the steps of the 16th Street Baptist
Church in Birmingham, Alabama, USA. This bomb exploded during the preparations
for that morning's Sunday school, murdering four young girls, Addie Mae Collins,
Cynthia Wesley, Carol Denise McNair and Carole Robertson, and injuring 22
others.

This now infamous act of racist terror was described by Martin Luther King Jr as
"one of the most vicious and tragic crimes ever perpetrated against humanity",
and proved to be a significant milestone in the growing Civil Rights Movement,
provoking worldwide revulsion, condemnation and heartbreak.

Several thousand miles away in the small Welsh coastal village of Llansteffan,
the artist John Petts read about the tragedy in his morning newspaper, the
Western Mail, and immediately resolved to offer a work of art to the destroyed
church. His vision was to create a stained-glass window that the people of Wales
would give in solidarity to the oppressed people of Birmingham, Alabama.

From this initial idea started a remarkable journey towards creating a visionary
and profound work of art, the Wales Window for Alabama: a radical reappraisal of
the crucified Christ as a Civil Rights protestor; and which still to this day
stands in the rebuilt 16th Street Baptist Church as a transcendent image of
harmony, shared humanity and suffering.





The Wales Window asks what does a work of art contain? What is its story? And
can one man's resolution to build a bridge between two nations, and two races,
ever truly be achieved?

The Wales Window is a commission for National Theatre Wales.

For more information regarding this project, please contact my agent, Nick Quinn
at The Agency.
November 2018 Filed under a play 


Seanmhair
Pebbles would crack against my window in the pitch of the night

I’d lean out and say –


What do you want Tommy MacLeish you black eyed monster?

And he says –

"You."





Seanmhair
(feminine: Scots Gaelic)
Grandmother

Pronounciation:

ˈʃɛ.nə.vɛrʲ

Shen-a-var

A chance meeting between two children on the streets of Edinburgh leads to a
terrible reckoning, leaving Jenny and Tommy forever bound together by blood and
fate. Brutal and beautiful, Hywel John's remarkable new play glimmers and cuts
like a jewel, fusing raw epic romance with guttural urban poetry to tell the
story of a secret generational legacy of love, violence and fury.



Seanmhair
by Hywel John

A choral story. One woman, many women.

Seanmhair premiered at The Other Room, Cardiff, Wales, in March 2017. Directed
by Kate Wasserberg and designed by Mark Bailey.

Cast: Sian Howard, Hannah McPake, Molly Vevers.

The production transferred to Bedlam Theatre at part of the Edinburgh Fringe
Festival 2017, with Jo Freer joining the cast.

Contact my agent Nick Quinn at The Agency for a copy of the script or
information regarding rights.

Seanmhair is published by Oberon Books.


February 2017 Filed under a play 


Rose
I know I am not English, but I feel it, is that not enough?





Reunited after years apart, Rose and her father, Arthur, try to piece together
the fragmented memories of their troubled relationship. But Rose's attempts to
uncover the secrets of their past, and to find out who she truly is, meet only
resistance from a man reluctant to reveal himself.

A heartbreaking study of heritage, grief and family, Rose is a powerful drama
about a Middle-Eastern immigrant's struggle to raise his daughter 'the English
way'.





Rose
by Hywel John

Rose premiered at the Pleasance Courtyard, as part of the 2011 Edinburgh
Festival, starring acclaimed stage and screen actor Art Malik, and his daughter,
Keira Malik.

For press reviews, see here.

Directed by Abbey Wright.
Designed by Richard Kent.
Sound by Alex Baranowski.
Lighting by Emma Chapman.
Produced by SearEd Productions, MLJ Productions and Dirty Boots Ltd, in
association with Pleasance Theatres.

In September 2014, Finland's Svenska Teatern presented the European mainland
premiere of Rose, directed by Michaela Granit, and starring actors Cecilia Paul
and Dick Idman.

A new free adaptation of the text by Anja Behrens played in September 2015 at
Team Teatret, in Herning, Denmark. This production was nominated for the
prestigious Reumert Awards 2016.








Rose is available for production in all other territories.

Contact me here or via my agent, Nick Quinn at The Agency for a copy of the
script or information regarding rights.

Rose is published by Nick Hern Books.



August 2011 Filed under a play 


Pieces
We have to pick up the pieces. We have to get back to work. We have to pick
ourselves up. That's what we have to do. Everything says so. Everything.





Jack and Beatrice are twins. They have no grandparents. They have no uncles and
aunties and no cousins. And now, they have no mum and dad. The one person who
can look after them is their godmother Sophie, who arrives, shocked and
unprepared, at their remote rural family home.

Sophie has not seen the children since they were tiny: too tiny for them to
remember her, and undoubtedly too little to remember what caused her long,
enforced absence. But as the three of them return to the isolated home on the
edge of a forest, their collective grief triggers a tragic attempt to remember,
repair and recreate the past.





Pieces
by Hywel John

Pieces premiered at Clwyd Theatr Cymru in April 2010. It then transferred to
59E59 Theatres, Off-Broadway, New York City.

For press reviews, see here.

Cast: Steven Meo, Louise Collins, Jennifer Kidd.

Directed by Kate Wasserberg.
Designed by Mark Bailey.
Lighting by Tom E. White.
Produced by Clwyd Theatr Cymru.

Pieces is available for production.

Contact my agent Nick Quinn at The Agency for a copy of the script or
information regarding rights.

Pieces is published by Nick Hern Books (UK) and Dramatists Play Service (USA).



April 2010 Filed under a play 


Godalming
Oh my dear don’t you hear the song is our heart is the swine is the suckling son
we reared as a King but took to the waves as the day turned away from our union
my darling our union with him and these white cliffs might take us today if we
sway if we say just one step away is our boy is our joy is our sight on the
light furthest west that reclaims us to wilding to wilding to hearing the
ringing the singing somehow beyond now somehow beyond this filth of Godalming
and the spit on the silver we married with as the gold on our fingers melts on
our lips for one final kiss now that we dance into time





"To ease your burden of fear, I will disclose
Why I came here, and what I heard that compelled
Me first to feel compassion for you: it was

A lady's voice that called me where I dwelled
In Limbo"

- Dante, 'Inferno'
Canto II, lines 40-44
translation by Robert Pinsky





Godalming is a new play of Englishness, empire and eternity.

Contact my agent Nick Quinn at The Agency for a copy of the script or
information regarding rights.



September 2018 Filed under a play 


The Mothers' Blessings
When I was a child, my father told me that there was a light somewhere near the
castle. A light that could only be seen under a full moon. He said if you saw
it, it would blind you, temporarily, and then for a short time you would see the
Pwca. That time would stop and time would be theirs and they would have you for
all that they wanted. All they ever wanted… was you. Then. When. You saw that
light. If… you saw that light…





Dr Morgan has died leaving his mysterious old wife Mam-Gu in the family home to
welcome their scattered children back for the most unusual of farewells and
incredible of unexpected returns.

The Mothers' Blessings is a Welsh family epic of legends, land and the lies that
bind.





Contact my agent Nick Quinn at The Agency for a copy of the script or
information regarding rights.



January 2018 Filed under a play 


The Well (The Boy Who Stole Attila's Horse)
It looks impossible to get out.

We'll get out.





Two brothers, Big and Small, are trapped at the bottom of a well. They have no
food and little chance of rescue. Only the tempting spectre of insanity offers a
way out. As Small's wits fail, Big formulates a desperate plan.

With the authority of the darkest fables, and the horrifying inevitability of
all-too-real life, this will be the stage adaptation of Iván Repila's unique and
beautiful allegory, exploring the depths of human desperation and, ultimately,
our almost unending capacity for hope.


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The Well is in development. Contact my agent Nick Quinn at The Agency for
information regarding rights.

The original novel, The Boy Who Stole Attila's Horse by Iván Repila, translated
by Sophie Hughes, is published by the Pushkin Press in the UK in March 2015, and
in the USA in November 2015.


March 2015 Filed under a play, an adaptation 


A Very Dark Hall in a Very Old School
Because I’ll tell you why I’m here. I’m here because it’s Christmas and I’m
Santa Claus, Father Christmas, Peter Pan, the Tooth Fairy, and every other giver
of gifts human beings have ever seen, said or made up to make their paltry,
silly little lives a little bit more fantastic. Tomorrow is the last day of the
Christmas Term, and we’re all going to wander to the church and sing carols, and
get pissed in the lunch break on bad mulled wine, and wonder what the fuck it is
we’re supposed to be doing with our lives, and so in the spirit of Christmas, I,
we, all of us together – including you now old boy – we are going to give this
school an earth shattering, soul shifting, epoch defining present, that’s going
to pretty much finish Christmas off. Forever. Because after we do what we’re
going to do, after we give what we’re going to give, no one’s going to need
another gift, another present, another Christmas, ever again.





'Beneath a ruined chapel-wall in thoughtful mood I lay;
While boys were darting to and fro before me at their play;
There bounding balls, their laughs, their shouts rung through the merry air:
Behind the wall was hallowed ground – the silent dead lay there.
And – mingling strangely with my thoughts, as I watched them – in my ears
There echoed ever solemnly the words, Three hundred years.'

- Edward Bickersteth Birks
from Poem
recited in Sir Roger Cholmeley’s School at Highgate,
on the Tercentenary Festival, June 7th 1865





ere

/ɛə/
[air]
conjunction, preposition

1.
a poetic word for before

Word Origin:
c.1200, from Old English ær (adv., conj., & prep.) "soon, before (in time),"
from Proto-Germanic *airiz, comparative of *air "early" (cf. Old Saxon, Old
Frisian, Old High German er, Dutch eer; German eher "earlier;" Old Norse ar
"early;" Gothic air "early," airis "earlier"), from PIE *ayer- "day, morning"
(cf. Avestanayar "day;" Greek eerios "at daybreak," ariston "breakfast"). The
adverb erstwhile retains the Old English superlative ærest "earliest."

- Online Etymology Dictionary
© 2010 Douglas Harper







A Very Dark Hall in a Very Old School
a play for teenagers and one old man
by Hywel John

Cast: 5 boys, 3 girls, and 1 Old Man.

A Very Dark Hall in a Very Old School was a commission for the 450th Anniversary
celebrations of Highgate School. It was performed in December 2015. More details
can be found here.

Contact my agent Nick Quinn at The Agency for a copy of the script or
information regarding rights.

January 2015 Filed under a play for teenagers and an old man 


Sevens Bridge



How did you know my name was Michael?

What? Is your name really Michael?

Yeah

No way

Yeah, how did you know my name was Michael?

I didn’t, no way, that is totally flipping weird – my name’s Jane

…

Jane! My name’s Jane

Yeah I heard you

I can’t flipping believe it, come on, get it down you – this deserves a toast

Why?

Why do you think? You’re Michael, I’m Jane – that is too weird

Why’s that weird?

Let’s just say this is what you might call a fortuitous circumstance

A what?

A fortuitous circumstance






'When you are used by your thoughts, your feet are not planted firmly on the
ground, in fact you have no feet at all. You are only the shadow of a human
being, blown about by circumstances... You there, with the wind whistling
through your nightie, what is your original self?'

Robert Aitken,
Taking The Path Of Zen





Mrs Banks: George! Oh, George, you didn't jump in the river. How sensible of
you!

Constable: It's all right, sir. He's been found! No, alive! Or so I presume.
He's a-kissin' a-Mrs. Banks

from Mary Poppins
Screenplay by Bill Walsh, Don Da Gradi





Sevens Bridge
by Hywel John

Sevens Bridge had a public rehearsed reading at Manhattan Theatre Club,
Broadway, New York City, in November 2010. The cast was Zawe Ashton and Hywel
John.

Available for production.

Contact my agent Nick Quinn at The Agency for a copy of the script or
information regarding rights.

November 2010 Filed under a play 


North: Joe



Islington.

I really don’t think I could live anywhere else.

That’s my manor. Don’t go nowhere else. Hackney if you’re lucky.

I tried West London once. At the start of my gap year. Got a flat with my friend
Seb – you know what it’s like, had to get away from the parentals. So we weighed
up our options… South London? Clearly not, it’s a suburban wasteland, and more
importantly, dangerously close to France. So maybe West is best blah blah blah,
but… Shepherd’s Bush was just… No.

Wouldn’t know what South London was if it came up and kicked me in the cunt,
know what I’m saying?





Joe: two men, one man.

Joe works in JD Sports and cares for his Nan.

Joe doesn’t have a job, and lives in a flat bought by his parents.

Joe drinks in Wetherspoons.

Joe drinks in Wetherspoons.

When piss starts flying, Joe discovers he’s not as different as he thinks.





Joe
by Hywel John

Joe was commissioned by Waifs+Strays in response to Owen Jones’ ‘CHAVS:
Demonization of the working class.’ and played at the Lyric Hammersmith in March
2012, before playing at the Latitude Arts Festival, Suffolk. It is being
developed into a film by Suzy McLintock of Pari Passu Films.

Joe was joined by the world premiere of Boy in a double-bill at Peckham's The
Last Refuge, at the Bussey Building, in September 2012.

Directed by Natalie Ibu.
Performed by Joseph Thompson (Lyric and Latitude)
and Jay Taylor (The Last Refuge).

Joe is available for production.

In 2017 Joe was made into a film.

Contact my agent Nick Quinn at The Agency for a copy of the script or
information regarding rights.

March 2012 Filed under a play 


South: Boy
Cos I’m thinking, I do things right? I’m a doer. A can-doer. I’m spending
everyday from Penge to Peckham looking for my Boy – I’m gonna make that happen –
I ain’t gonna let him down – he knows I didn’t mean it – and sitting at that
desk, all night long, this question keeps speeding round my mind, like a
whirlpool – what am I watching for? What am I watching for? What am I watching
for?





He’s tip-top. He loves his Boy. He’s lucky lucky lucky.
He used to be a working man. He used to be hands on. He used to get things done.
But now he watches. At night. Alone. And all he can see is everything he lost.





Boy
by Hywel John

Boy premiered in a double-bill with Joe at Peckham's The Last Refuge, at the
Bussey Building, in September 2012.

Directed by Natalie Ibu.
Produced by Francesca Moody.
Performed by Christopher Knott.

Boy is available for production.

Contact my agent Nick Quinn at The Agency for a copy of the script or
information regarding rights.



September 2012 Filed under a play 


East: Rake
The Andromeda Galaxy is 2.5 million light years from Leytonstone, which is quite
a trip, but nothing compared to the 14 thousand million years from yesterday to
get to the beginning of all time.

I have a Young Person’s Railcard for my longer journeys so I don’t waste my
pocket money.

I’m saving up for my Grand Tour.





Liminal
limənl/
adjective
technical
1. of or relating to a transitional or initial stage of a process.
2. occupying a position at, or on both sides of, a boundary or threshold.





'A rake, short for rakehell (analogous to “hellraiser”), is a historic term
applied to a man who is habituated to immoral conduct, frequently a heartless
womaniser. Often a rake was a prodigal who wasted his (usually inherited)
fortune on gambling, wine, women and song, incurring lavish debts in the
process. The rake was also frequently a man who seduced a young woman and
impregnated her before leaving, often to her social or financial ruin.'
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rake_(character)





'Wikipedia, for instance, works on what I call the Oracle Illusion, in which
knowledge of the human authorship of the text is suppressed in order to give the
text superhuman validity. Traditional holy books work in precisely the same way
and present many of the same problems.'
- Jarod Lanier, You Are Not A Gadget





Rake
by Hywel John

Available for production.

Contact my agent Nick Quinn at The Agency for a copy of the script or
information regarding rights.

October 2014 Filed under a play 


West: Câr di
And I took her by the hand and the smell of her hair was so rich and envisioned
with so much love that patterns of time wrapped themselves through me, entwining
me, and I felt as certain as a man can be that if I step forward one more step
it would be with her, and every step would be with her, and every breath, and
every heartbeat in every heart







Câr di
Welsh: Love thou







'So our seer is put in a rapture, transport, and sort of death, as divested of
his body and all its senses,
when he is first made participant of this curious piece of knowledge.'
– Robert Kirk, The Secret Commonwealth







Câr di
by Hywel John

Currently in development.

Contact my agent Nick Quinn at The Agency for a copy of the script or
information regarding rights.

January 2015 Filed under a play 


Catastrophe
I want to know how you can be grateful for what happened? We were forced to
leave our homes, I speak this language now like it’s my own, but it is not, and
now, now I can’t remember my own tongue. I am nowhere, I have become nowhere
and…

And what?

How can you not want to return with me?

Because I too have become nowhere and I rather like it.






Catastrophe
a short play for two old men
by Hywel John

Available for production.

Contact my agent Nick Quinn at The Agency for a copy of the script or
information regarding rights.



Filed under a short play 


I'll Go To Bed At Noon
It’s funny, I think the Fool in ‘King Lear’ may be the last part I shall ever
have played, and the last line I spoke upon a stage is:

“And I'll go to bed at noon.”

Lear says:

“Make no noise, make no noise; draw the curtains: so, so, so. We’ll go to supper
i’the morning: so, so, so.”

And I’ll go to bed at noon…






'This is the last time he will ever seem
To die. After those partial failures, death’s
Similitude is perfect.
Once more, dissatisfied and tired, he steps
From his clothes, discards a hot
Costume of dust.

Nor creams nor running water but decay
Shall wash him clean, and fresheningly remove
His counterfeit appearance.
Beyond this walking-out what vaster world
Is rumoured? Just as he,
In theatre days,

Would leave under the small discoloured towel
His tubes and powders tidy, and rejoin
The traffic, throwing off-hand
Good-nights, this player now, for ever and
For ever reassumes
Reality.'

Anonymous, To The Memory Of An Actor,
Quoted p.219, The Timeless Quest, by Christopher Hassall.





'Poor Fool, such an undramatic exit at the high-noon of his life, though perhaps
not his fortunes.'





I'll Go To Bed At Noon
by Stephen Haggard,
Adapted for the stage by Hywel John.

Available for production.

Contact my agent Nick Quinn at The Agency for a copy of the script or
information regarding rights.
October 2013 Filed under a play