An elusive father

In a large upstairs room of the YWCA building behind Tottenham Court Road, a group of actors were nervously waiting for the arrival of the director. There was the powerful whiff of a good cigar, the faint scent of expensive cologne and Orson Welles arrived. He had been in Paris cutting his film of Kafka’s The Trial and now here he was; a huge man, beautifully dressed in a dark suit and floppy tie, full of good humour, apologising for having missed a week of rehearsal.

The room exploded with his laughter, an explosion so loud you feared for the windows, and everyone relaxed. He had prepared a version of the two parts of Shakespeare’s King Henry IV and he was going to play Falstaff. Most of the cast were young, and amongst them was a teenager who had been at Oxford. His name was Michael Lindsay-Hogg. He was a beautiful boy.