David Hugh Jones

David Hugh Jones (19 February 1934 – 19 September 2008) was an English stage, television and film director.

Life and career Jones was born in Poole, Dorset, the son of John David Jones and his wife Gwendolen Agnes Langworthy (Ricketts), and was educated at Taunton School and Christ's College, Cambridge. He also took over responsibility for running the Aldwych from 1969 to 1972, and again in 1975–77. During this period he championed the plays of David Mercer and Maxim Gorky.

For BBC television he directed Ice Age, The Beaux Stratagem and Langrishe, Go Down (1978).

After teaching at the Yale School of Drama in 1981, he returned to England, where for the BBC Television Shakespeare series he directed The Merry Wives of Windsor (1982), and Pericles, Prince of Tyre (1984), and made his debut as a feature film director with Betrayal (1983), based on Harold Pinter's screenplay adaptation of his 1978 play Betrayal.

From 1973 to 1978, Jones was Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), at the Aldwych Theatre, where he directed plays by William Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, Anton Chekhov, Seán O'Casey, Maxim Gorky, Harley Granville-Barker, Graham Greene, and others, and became an honorary associate director of the RSC in 1991. From 1979 to 1981, he was Artistic Director of the BAM Theater Company (1979–1981).

He also directed three productions at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, in Williamstown, Massachusetts: On the Razzle (1981), by Tom Stoppard (2005); Sweet Bird of Youth (1959), by Tennessee Williams (2006), and The Autumn Garden (1951), by Lillian Hellman (2007).

Private life Jones married the British actress Sheila Allen in 1964 with whom he had two sons, Jesse (of Brooklyn, New York) and Joseph (of Tucson, Arizona). After his divorce from Allen, Jones's partner of the last 20 years of his life was photographer Joyce Tenneson; the couple lived in New York at the time of his death.

Directed the following productions: Langrishe, Go Down (starring Judi Dench and Jeremy Irons) (1978) Look Back in Anger (co-directed with Lindsay Anderson and starring Malcolm McDowell) (1980) The Merry Wives of Windsor (starring Richard Griffiths as Falstaff) (1982) Pericles, Prince of Tyre (1984) The Devil's Disciple (1987) The Christmas Wife (starring Jason Robards and Julie Harris) (1988) Fire in the Dark (starring Olympia Dukakis) (1991) And Then There Was One (1994) Is There Life Out There? (1994) A Christmas Carol (1999)

Also various episodes of: Picket Fences (1992) Chicago Hope (1994) The Practice (The Civil Right) (1997) Law & Order: SVU (1999) 7th Heaven (2003) Bones (The Man on Death Row) (2005)