Writer, producer, director, star of stage and screen, Emlyn Williams was a major talent in British theatre. He was also a man divided; the grammar school boy who went up to Oxford; the labourer’s son with gilt-edged bonds; the Welsh speaker at ease in the metropolis; devoted husband yet lover of men. This book examines the diverse influences which shaped this complex character. The relationship with parents; with his influential teacher Miss Cooke; the relocations - geographic, cultural and social; the allure of bohemia and the obsession with serial murderers: Russell Stephens weaves a compelling narrative which leads us from the Welsh-English Border to twenties Oxford; from Lloyd-George’s home in Criccieth to West End associations with Gielgud, from gay haunts at the Alhambra Gardens to the National Eisteddfod of Wales.