Hugh Hughes: death, rapture and Anglesey

A puppyish Welshman's life story is reducing audiences to tears. Brian Logan pins him down
Shôn Dale-Jones
Tell us the one about the rabbit . . . Shôn Dale-Jones Photograph: Graeme Robertson for the Guardian

Rule number one for an interview: know who you're interviewing. Right now, I'm not so sure. Is it Hugh Hughes, who is billed, thrillingly, as an "emerging Welsh multimedia artist"? Or is it Shôn Dale-Jones, Hughes's creator and alter ego? Sometimes, it's hard to see where one man ends and the other begins.

Dale-Jones is responsible for a trio of hit shows in which the character he plays, Hughes, tells tales of his life in Anglesey, so simple and optimistic that they pluck at the heartstrings. In Edinburgh, Hughes reduced audiences to tears and rapture. Now the shows have been brought together for the first time as a trilogy, showing at the Barbican in London. It's quite an elevation for what is essentially a solo character act.

Hughes first emerged in Floating, the 2006 show by Dale-Jones's company Hoipolloi. A puppyish naif, breathlessly upbeat and eager to please, Hughes reconstructs the story of the day Anglesey cut loose from Wales and drifted into the Atlantic. In 2007's Story of a Rabbit, Hughes narrates two intertwined tales: the death of his neighbour's bunny and his own father's demise. Meanwhile, in the pared-back 360, which debuted last year, Hughes explores the meaning of lifelong friendship as he tells of how he climbed Snowdon with his pal Gareth.

As I talk to Dale-Jones, it becomes clear that his own life story is more or less identical to Hughes's: the dying father, for example, was Dale-Jones's. This blurring of reality and fiction has now been taken a stage further with the arrival of a new "documentary" about Hughes's life, entitled How I Got Here (How Did I Get Here?), which is showing as part of this month's Barbican retrospective. Camera in hand, Dale-Jones, 41, revisits his native Anglesey to meet Hughes's family and friends.

"What's funny," says Dale-Jones, "is that my mum plays Hugh's mum. And she is not an actor in any way. She gets very confused about who she's talking to. But I have actors playing my [ie, Hugh's] brother and sister. Friends who've seen the film asked if Sophie, who plays my sister, is my real sister. So the mix is working well."

The character of Hughes came out of a best man's speech Dale-Jones made in 2004. He and his wife Stefanie Muller had run Hoipolloi for 10 years – but only after the speech, which went down well, did he realise that stories from his own life might be entertaining for audiences. In that case, why doesn't Dale-Jones just perform as himself? Why lend your autobiography to a fictional construct? "I've always loved playing comic characters," he says. "It gives me huge liberty on stage and in writing. Also, I've never trusted those performers who go on stage and tell an audience about their lives. It's like: your life isn't more interesting than anyone else's. But certain aspects of it are. So can't you do us a favour and dress them up?" So Hughes is Dale-Jones "dressed up", with the boring bits removed and the upbeat bits intensified.

Audiences have been moved to tears by the results: by Hughes's emotional frankness, and by the combination of his sunny disposition and the sad stories he tells. "My relationship with my father was much messier in reality than in Story of a Rabbit," he admits. Being Hughes allows him "to just choose the really wonderful memories and wonderful feelings I have for my father. There's a kind of wish-fulfilment thing inside the Hugh project, mixing our huge desire for something we want with a sense of what we don't quite have.

"People can be suspicious about work that's emotional. But I love seeing people being really expressive, upfront and honest about the way they're feeling. I just think: what a great place to be. With Hugh Hughes, I'm saying to audiences: 'It's really brilliant to see you.' And it really is. Then I'm offering a continual commentary on what he's seeing and feeling. 'I didn't know that fire extinguisher was there. Why do they paint them red, I wonder?' There's nothing else to it. He's a simple man."

It's a potent formula: Hoipolloi have put their other work on hold for two years, to concentrate on "the Hugh project". Radio and film outings are in the pipeline, as is "the biggest Hugh Hughes show yet" at the National Theatre Wales. For that show, Dale-Jones returns to Anglesey, to reconstruct the story of Hugh's childhood. "What's really fun with Hugh is that, to understand the world, he compares everything to Llangefni and Anglesey. 'Oh, he's just like Gwilym the butcher, the way he stands there, and his hair . . .' Everything is filtered through these first 18 years."

Can the same be said for Dale-Jones? Neither actor nor the character is telling. "The closer you push the fantasy towards reality," he says elusively, "the more interesting it becomes."