I got quite cross when I heard about Emma Thompson adapting 'Sense and Sensibility.' It was absolutely childish of me, but I thought, 'I should be doing that. They didn't even ask me.' Some mistake, surely.

As a fairly innocent teenager, growing up in a village in Wales, I just thought, "God, I would like to go and hang about Soho and write great poetry and try to avoid drinking myself to death."

The joy of writing drama is putting yourself into different people's heads.

I had a mother who was very emotionally demanding, wanting to be the centre of attention. As they say in EastEnders, she thought it was all about 'er. I spent a lot of time trying to work out what was going on.

Plan for each episode to be a satisfying experience, but still leave the audience thinking, 'Oh, my God! Now what?

I'm not one of these people who say how much better American drama is than English. I find it mostly too American, except for The Sopranos, which I think is the best thing.

I remain, however, fairly optimistic for the future of period drama because it's just such a popular thing.