Synopsis
a complete fiction
based on the truths of William Pryor’s memoir
The Survival of the Coolest
El Patio, Cambridge’s first coffee bar, 1963, when the sixties really began, when the world was going to change. Charles Darwin’s great, great grandson, William Pryor, is finding his groove with the trainee hipsters that hang out there. There has always been a disquiet in the boy, a disconnect with his family who have considerable expectations of him. As a child he had a secret doppelganger, Atma, to share his dilemmas with; now he’s going to be a poet. Gwen Raverat, William’s grandmother, the bohemian artist, becomes his confidant and inspiration. He makes new friends: hipster Angel and red-headed Ophelia, a dotty, pretty art student, who falls for him. Soon after he encounters the committed junky avante-gardist Alex Trocchi, William plunges headlong 
into making dope-inspired beat poetry, experimenting with opium, becoming a dada-ist and, as a sideline, studying philosophy at his father’s college. Performing his poetry in Paris, William not only meets Josette, a beautiful young French woman, but befriends dangerously cool André, a French countercultural junky. All too soon André helps William inject some of the NHS heroin he scores in London straight into a vein. William says he’s never felt better, then vomits.
Back home, Ophelia persists in her pursuit of William, her affection for him undaunted. William needs more. He 
goes to India to visit a guru, and though he connects, he is not ready for the swami’s light. On his return, he’s a fully-fledged, anguished, angry, but fragile poet, and captivating too, just right for Josette, his sexy Parisian acquaintance who’s just moved to England. They fall into a sensual, all-encompassing passion. William’s junk is part of his darkly erotic attraction. In their different ways, Gwen, Ophelia and Atma show William their love, but cannot stop him being sucked into a maelstrom of obsession.
Angel witnesses William being busted. He is sent to a Victorian lunatic asylum for treatment. 
Ophelia visits him, seeing him in all his fragility and loving him for what he is. William is devastated when she reluctantly tells him what his family won’t: Gwen has died. On his release, William still can’t choose between Josette and Ophelia, obsessive about the former, not indifferent about the latter. And then an invitation to arch beat junky Alex Trocchi’s house whose disdain is absolute. William’s a mere dabbler. True cultural revolutionaries sacrifice their bodies on the altar of addiction; they use heroin. William resists, but the syringe that Trocchi spins comes to rest pointing at him. William picks it up and fixes. Now Trocchi can invite William to take the slot after Allen Ginsberg at the forthcoming Wholly Communion poetry reading in the Albert Hall. Could William’s moment have arrived after all? At least he will be loved by thousands for his poetry.
Reaching out to his son, Mark gives William a travelling Buddha, only to die soon after as the result of a car crash. Turning up late and stoned for the funeral, William nearly falls into the grave. Catching him, Mark’s brother tells William he killed his father with worry. Everyone’s had enough, not least Josette, who goes home to France to get straight. Then William’s big chance for redemption turns to dust: he is booed off the stage at Wholly Communion, too stoned to read. He hurries away from the Albert Hall in meltdown. Ophelia catches up with him. Maybe this is a good thing, she suggests. Anyway, she loves him. The shock is absolute. He stops using and somehow manages to stay clean.
Confronting the ghosts of Trocchi and Mark on Dartmoor, William is finally able to surrender into a new life. He merges with Atma. He realises how much he loves Ophelia. They go together to see the guru in India. Angel shows up. The old friends reconnect. Sitting in front of Swami Ji, the whole of William’s life flashes before him. Now it all makes sense! The guru laughs.
