I very nearly lost my job in advance over Comedians. Apart from that, it led me to work with a group of actors who then went on to be astonishingly well-known – Jonathan Pryce, Stephen Rea, Tom Wilkinson. It was transformative for all of us. And it had one catalytic accident that got me the job of artistic director of the National Theatre.
I was 30 and running Nottingham Playhouse. In those days, I had a sort of kamikaze policy. I thought if a writer would commit to writing a play, then I announced it was going to be done. The writer would be forced to walk the gangplank.
