Richard Ayoade on The Unfinished Harauld Hughes: Salinger, Sanctimony, and Spinal Tap

Listen to this episode from The Hatchards Podcast on Spotify. On this episode, we were joined by the iconic actor, writer, and filmmaker Richard Ayoade to discuss his latest comic novel, The Unfinished Harauld Hughes, a fictional accounting of his quest to canonise the most significant British playwright of the 20th century (who also happens to be entirely made up). Richard spoke to us about the figures that influenced the invention of Hughes–among them Harold Pinter and Orson Welles–and the ill-fated film Hughes authored, "O Bedlam, O Bedlam", which stopped the prolific playwright from ever writing again. He expressed scepticism about the myths and exaggerations that create "great lost works" and literary recluses and discussed why it is important to approach comic writing from the inside out rather than trying to make fun of your characters. For good measure, we also discuss his deep love of "Spinal Tap", Joan Didion, and the time he spent acting in Wes Anderson's "The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar."