David Farr

“The story of Ilium, the ancient city of Troy, has always gripped me.”

“The world in the '90s had seemed somewhat stable. There was talk of the end of history, a calm consensus around where we were all going. Consumer capitalism with some sort of social conscience. Then 9/11 happened, and that illusion was blown out of the water.”

“Comedy is good at analysing and dealing with evil because it doesn't present it as evil but a collection of banalities.”

“The character of Robin Hood stands for the deep anger of the dispossessed against the ruling classes.”

“You can't cast Hittites as Trojans; I'd love to do it, but sadly, there are none available!”

“I would say what you have to do as a screenwriter is strip the book back to find the skeleton. When you've found the skeleton - that's what you trust - you reclothe.”

“When you go into a forest, anything can happen.”

“'Fall Of A City' aims to convey, in all its emotional richness, the effects of war and the toll taken on city and family by the horrors of siege.”

“I don't like selling myself. It's a sort of shy arrogance.”

“Write first, worry later.”

“We go into nature to transform.”

“In the '90s, everyone thought we'd solved everything and liberal capitalism was the agreed way to live. That got blown up in 9/11, and capitalism proved completely flawed in 2008.”

“Directing is extrovert and gregarious; writing is isolating, introverted, and lonely.”

“All comedy is funny because it tells us truths that we recognise through laughter, but that doesn't mean it can't be unnerving. Think of 'Fawlty Towers'; it can be very, very dark, but by God, it's funny. The two things are not in opposition.”

“Most Robin Hood stories are not very exciting. There are not a lot of surprises.”

“As a director, I start with the visual.”

“'Hamlet' is so modern; 'Coriolanus' is utterly alien to our consciousness, and that makes it difficult for us.”

“I always just read the play and find a world. That world must honour the play, enhance it, and maybe shine some new light - not satirise or try to reinvent in a way that is placing the idea above the thing. The play is the thing.”

“I was very struck by the fact that Robin Hood became increasingly taken over by the middle and upper classes. He starts out a bandit but becomes a fully fledged aristocrat.”

“We don't live in vacuums; we do care about the world, and we do want to believe our country is doing the right thing on our behalf.”