I would love it if anyone gave me the job of adapting 'The Great Gatsby,' but nobody ever does..

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

Othello' is the most domestic of Shakespeare's tragedies and the one that's likely to strike a personal note with a lot of people watching it..

Most actors hate readthroughs - they're exposing themselves before they're ready to, and before they've bonded. But I love them because they give us ….

People in the BBC are always dying to get out of their open-plan offices..

'Affinity' is beautiful and intense, with no laughs. It's a rather delicate and emotional love story, with a spooky element..

I had a very high opinion of my father's judgement of things and he said, "You better get a job that pays the bills because a writer doesn't make any….

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 ….

From time to time there is a move to do a little less in the way of period dramas, but people rebel. Audiences say we want them. There is a big hunge….

I'm absolutely delighted if people think of me as a reliable purveyor of quality period stuff..

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 do….

An adaptation I was working on of Trollope's 'The Pallisers' has been axed by the BBC... I was also going to do Dickens' 'Dombey and Son' but they've….

I'm glad nobody has asked me to adapt 'Wuthering Heights' because I think I would make a mess of it. Everybody makes a mess of it. I think the Bronte….

You're stuck with being yourself, so the important thing is to find people who like that..

I adore doing classic adaptations, but I also feel their frustrations and their limitations..

Look at Jane Austen. Her characters derive in a reasonably straight line from fairy tales..

I know that a ridiculous number of classic serials have been commissioned, and that reviews show a reaction against them. The critics seem fed up..

Taking the humour out of Dickens, it's not Dickens any more..

One of the things I've always thought is a drag in so many period adaptations is that they are always buttoned up to the neck in so many clothes all ….

I'd love to adapt more contemporary novels. But there isn't really enough story and character to make a really satisfying serial, so they tend to be ….

The BBC fulfils a wonderful cultural function. Maybe the problem is that it feels it needs to be everything to everybody..