Candide is one of those books I read when I was young and that I come back to regularly.

Twenty years ago, when you bumped into someone and asked how they were, they would say, 'Mustn't grumble' or 'Getting by': now they feel obliged to say 'Just great!'. In both cases, the reply is just a social nicety, but the framework has changed, it's as if it's become a social duty to express happiness.

I have not chosen to create a linear story, but a series of different narratives: in the end there are five plays that almost, but don't quite, add up to one play... I start with the story of Candide, being performed as a play within a play, to bring the audience up to speed with the story.

It's a book that makes me laugh and think - it would be very hard to like someone who didn't enjoy Candide!

Candide is one of those books I read when I was young and that I come back to regularly.

Theatre within theatre, when characters sees themselves on stage, always raises philosophical questions of choice and free will.

Translating Candide into tweets has really deepened my appreciation of his writing - it wouldn't work so well with nineteenth-century authors. Every single sentence in Voltaire seems to advance the story, and yet stand alone as a sound-bite.