David Hugh Jones

Custody of the Heart

Claire's number one priority is her family. When her husband Dennis loses his stockbroker job, the couple's traditional family roles switch. As Dennis takes on his new stay-at-home role, Claire's furniture design business takes off. Just as she's beginning to master the art of balancing her home and work life, Dennis serves her with divorce papers and charges her with being an unfit mother. Claire discovers that in a modern courtroom there are still traditional biases unsympathetic to the idea of a woman working three jobs, as a wife, an entrepreneur and a mother.

A Christmas Carol

Miser Ebenezer Scrooge is awakened on Christmas Eve by spirits who reveal to him his own miserable existence, what opportunities he wasted in his youth, his current cruelties, and the dire fate that awaits him if he does not change his ways. Scrooge is faced with his own story of growing bitterness and meanness, and must decide what his own future will hold: death or redemption.

The Confession

After his young son dies from the negligence at a hospital, Harry Fertig takes matters into his own hands and kills the doctor, nurse and clerk responsible. Slick lawyer Roy Bleakie, looking only to win a case and not caring of the matters involved, is asked by Fertig's boss to defend him. Shocked to hear that his client wants to plead guilty, the case causes Bleakie to question his own morals by defending an honorable man.

An Unexpected Life

A single woman has her idyllic life disrupted when she takes in orphans. But, soon she comes to depend on the sound of little feet and couldn't think of life without them.

Time to Say Goodbye?

A doctor suffering from Alzheimer's wishes to end his life, causing a severe rift in the family, with each side convinced they have the father's best interests at heart.

For the Future: The Irvine Fertility Scandal

John and Debbie Challender have been trying to conceive a child for ten years. Because this hasn't worked they adopted a son, but Debbie still feels she has missed out on something not knowing what it's like to feel life inside of her. They decide to seek treatment from a so-called 'miracle doctor' Ash at Irvine University. Although John doesn't like the doctor they go ahead with the treatment, which almost kills Debbie. All ends well though and they become the parents of another son. Meanwhile the office manager of Dr. Ash's clinic become more and more suspicious when she finds out that some of his nurses are not licensed RN's.

Sophie and the Moonhanger

A woman pits herself against her husband and his Ku Klux Klan member friends when she learns that they are planning an attack against her black maid and her husband.

Message for Posterity

A version of Dennis Potter's play for television, remade shortly before his death as the original 1960s version had been wiped.

Is There Life Out There?

Lily Marshall has a loving, supportive husband, two great kids and an unfulfilled dream: to return to college and get the degree she always wanted. "Is there life beyond her family and home?", Lily wonders. The hole in Lily's life is soon filled by too much. There's a confusing new social life on campus, schoolwork keeping her up late, a part-time job keeping her from her husband and kids whose mom is turning into a stranger. Lily's strength, love and perseverance are the only things that can help her now.

And Then There Was One

After struggling and finally conceiving a child, Roxy and Vinnie Ventola, a successful television writing couple, learns that their newborn has AIDS. Soon afterward, the two parents are also diagnosed with the fatal virus.

The Trial

Joseph K. awakes one morning, to find two strange men in his room, telling him he has been arrested. Joseph is not told what he is charged with, and despite being "arrested," is allowed to remain free and go to work. But despite the strange nature of his arrest, Joseph soon learns that his trial, however odd, is very real, and tries desperately to spare himself from the court's judgement.

Fire in the Dark

A 75-year old widow with battles herself as she struggles with being a burden to those she loves. Though determined not to rely on her children, she is forced to move in with her daughter after a serious fall, and the family learns to face the future with dignity and hope.

Jacknife

A conflict develops between a troubled Vietnam veteran and the sister he lives with when she becomes involved romantically with the army buddy who reminds him of the tragic battle they both survived.

The Christmas Wife

An aging and recent widower, not wanting to spend his first Christmas alone, responds to an ad in the newspaper which reads: "You are not alone. We make social arrangements of all kinds." When he visits the Social Arranger, he makes it very clear his only interest is in "social company" and is subsequently introduced to a woman who agrees to spend the holiday with him. The woman bids him to not ask any questions about her personal life, which harbors a secret that threatens their developing friendship, and could ultimately change both their lives.

The Devil's Disciple

Shaw turned to the classic Victorian melodrama to focus on the insincerity of much that his audience held dear, especially family and marriage. In 1777 as the American War of Independence rages, Dick Dudgeon returns to the family he revolted against years ago. But his life is about to take another twist as the british arrive and seem set on an execution...

84 Charing Cross Road

When a humorous script-reader in her New York apartment sees an ad in the Saturday Review of Literature for a bookstore in London that does mail order, she begins a very special correspondence and friendship with Frank Doel, the bookseller who works at Marks & Co., 84 Charing Cross Road.

Pericles, Prince of Tyre

When Pericles discovers the dread answer to Antioch's riddle, he flees for his life straight into famine, shipwreck, love, fatherhood, and another shipwreck; he loses his wife and daughter, and doesn't find them again until the story moves us through resurrection, attempted murder, pirates, prostitution, and divine revelation.

Betrayal

An affair between a literary agent and his best friend's wife, unfolding in reverse-chronological order.

The Merry Wives of Windsor

When Sir John Falstaff decides that he wants to have a little fun he writes two letters to a pair of Window wives: Mistress Ford and Mistress Page. When they put their heads together and compare missives, they plan a practical joke or two to teach the knight a lesson. But Mistress Ford's husband is a very jealous man and is pumping Falstaff for information of the affair. Meanwhile the Pages' daughter Anne is beseiged by suitors.

Langrishe, Go Down

In the late 1930s, three reclusive middle-aged spinster sisters live on their run down family estate in Ireland. Otto Beck, a perpetual graduate student from Bavaria with a habit of making pompous declamations, rents the back lodge to work on his esoteric thesis. Imogen Langrishe, the least repressed of the sisters, begins an affair with Otto. Imogen takes the love affair seriously, but Otto just enjoys the cheap lodging and the comfort of Imogen.

Ice Age

' You should have thrown the hand-grenade.' ' I've still got it!' An unexpected stranger arrives at the old people's home in Norway where a famous writer is kept in confinement after the war. Should he be brought to trial for collaborating with the Nazis? Or will the young partisan carry through his original plan to kill him?

An Artist's Story

An Artist's Story concerns the confrontation of ideas between Anton, a young landscape painter, and Lydia, a young aristocratic girl who devotes her life to good works.