I'm fundamentally a busy person; I spend my time doing useful things and profoundly useless things!

I get grumpy about the innate conservatism of our tastes; I love bold theatre, and I get annoyed when a heritage piece is really successful.

Our conception of 1950s underwear is a lovely vintage aesthetic, but actually, wearing stockings with no elastic and a girdle was heavy duty.

I'm fundamentally a busy person; I spend my time doing useful things and profoundly useless things!

A passion for any novel, and any character, can crystallise your ideas when you really need to be as open as possible as a performer.

Postwar Europe was morally stagnant, and there was a lot of neo-conservatism.

When you're on stage, you build strong relationships with the actors, but it's a story you tell with the audience - you have to include them, you have to respond to them, they have to understand the narrative.