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Hugh Stoddart
Hugh Stoddart is a British screenwriter and art critic. He has worked as a writer on many films, including the screen adaptation of a Virginia Woolf novel, To the Lighthouse (1983), which was directed by Colin Gregg. The film was Kenneth Branagh's first acting role.
Stoddart wrote the screenplay for the 1988 film We Think the World of You, also directed by Colin Gregg, and co-wrote the 2017 mystery drama film Waiting for You with its director Charles Garrad.
Stoddart attended secondary school in Worthing, West Sussex and went on to Keble College, Oxford University, graduating with a degree in law in 1969. He spent some time as an articled clerk in a firm of solicitors in London then left to work in the arts. Stoddart was front of house manager at Greenwich Theatre and also manager of the art gallery housed in the theatre.
Stoddart moved from London to Devon in 1972 to take up a new appointment at South West Arts. At the time it was one of twelve regional arts organisations funded jointly by local government and the Arts Council of Great Britain. He was their first Visual Arts Officer and travelled widely across the region in support of artists and galleries; he also began to develop support for craft and film with funds from the Craft Council and the British Film Institute.
In 1978 Stoddart was appointed Director of the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham. It moved the same year to much larger premises. This was achieved at minimal cost and allowed an expansion of the programme both in the number of exhibitions and the scale of work that could be shown. Stoddart gave first exhibitions in the UK to Bernard Bazile, Chris Burden, Agnes Denes, Jochen Gerz, Noel Harding, Pieter Laurens Mol and Dennis Oppenheim. Oppenheim's sculpture Vibrating Forest was later restored and shown by the Henry Moore Foundation in Leeds. Denes’ work was subsequently toured to the Institute of Contemporary Arts London.
Stoddart's programme included UK artists at the start of their careers such as Paul Graham, Mali Morris and Hugh O’Donnell. He also included in the programme artists working in the area broadly referred to as installations art such as Ron Haselden, as well as those engaged in performance art. There was an exhibition at the Ikon Gallery to revisit the shows put on by Stoddart and his successor, Antonia Payne As Exciting As We Can Make It.
Stoddart left the Ikon Gallery at the end of his three year contract, and moved to London where he worked as a freelance art critic in the early 1990s. His reviews were published mainly in Contemporary Visual Arts, a magazine then edited by Keith Patrick.
Stoddart was active in amateur drama while at school and continued this interest at university where he was active both as an actor and director. Having written short stories previously he began to write drama while at university and sent his first scripts to the Royal Court Theatre, who invited him to join their Writers Group. He was drawn more to the screen than the theatre, however, and began writing scripts speculatively and seeking interest and reactions in his spare time.
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Hugh Stoddart
Hugh Stoddart is a British screenwriter and art critic. He has worked as a writer on many films, including the screen adaptation of a Virginia Woolf novel, To the Lighthouse (1983), which was directed by Colin Gregg. The film was Kenneth Branagh's first acting role.
Stoddart wrote the screenplay for the 1988 film We Think the World of You, also directed by Colin Gregg, and co-wrote the 2017 mystery drama film Waiting for You with its director Charles Garrad.
Stoddart attended secondary school in Worthing, West Sussex and went on to Keble College, Oxford University, graduating with a degree in law in 1969. He spent some time as an articled clerk in a firm of solicitors in London then left to work in the arts. Stoddart was front of house manager at Greenwich Theatre and also manager of the art gallery housed in the theatre.
Stoddart moved from London to Devon in 1972 to take up a new appointment at South West Arts. At the time it was one of twelve regional arts organisations funded jointly by local government and the Arts Council of Great Britain. He was their first Visual Arts Officer and travelled widely across the region in support of artists and galleries; he also began to develop support for craft and film with funds from the Craft Council and the British Film Institute.
In 1978 Stoddart was appointed Director of the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham. It moved the same year to much larger premises. This was achieved at minimal cost and allowed an expansion of the programme both in the number of exhibitions and the scale of work that could be shown. Stoddart gave first exhibitions in the UK to Bernard Bazile, Chris Burden, Agnes Denes, Jochen Gerz, Noel Harding, Pieter Laurens Mol and Dennis Oppenheim. Oppenheim's sculpture Vibrating Forest was later restored and shown by the Henry Moore Foundation in Leeds. Denes’ work was subsequently toured to the Institute of Contemporary Arts London.
Stoddart's programme included UK artists at the start of their careers such as Paul Graham, Mali Morris and Hugh O’Donnell. He also included in the programme artists working in the area broadly referred to as installations art such as Ron Haselden, as well as those engaged in performance art. There was an exhibition at the Ikon Gallery to revisit the shows put on by Stoddart and his successor, Antonia Payne As Exciting As We Can Make It.
Stoddart left the Ikon Gallery at the end of his three year contract, and moved to London where he worked as a freelance art critic in the early 1990s. His reviews were published mainly in Contemporary Visual Arts, a magazine then edited by Keith Patrick.
Stoddart was active in amateur drama while at school and continued this interest at university where he was active both as an actor and director. Having written short stories previously he began to write drama while at university and sent his first scripts to the Royal Court Theatre, who invited him to join their Writers Group. He was drawn more to the screen than the theatre, however, and began writing scripts speculatively and seeking interest and reactions in his spare time.