John Tiffany

It blows my mind that you get Shakespeare where the 'low' comedy characters have got Northern or Welsh accents.

I hate rules. I hate 'This is the way things are done'. I hate a lack of reinvention. I hate theatre as an archeological exercise. Theatre needs to be urgent.

Pinocchio's really naughty. He's all impulse: 'I want to sleep now. I want to eat that. I want to run off to Pleasure Island.' It's commedia dell'arte meets Grimm's tales.

West Side Story' is one of the greatest theatrical experiences I've had.

I was obsessed with theatre and loving the work of Caryl Churchill, Edward Bond, Howard Brenton, and Howard Barker, people doing real formal experimentation. But 'Road' was the first time I'd read a play written in a very true Northern dialect that seemed to have that excitement running through it.

It's very hard to argue with the politics of 'Black Watch,' because it is not an opinion; it is just the true stories of these boys, and any opinions expressed are theirs.

I was pre-med at Glasgow University. I was from a family who were of the mind that if you were clever enough to be a doctor or a lawyer, why wouldn't you be?

When I realised, on 'The Straits,' that physical work in the theatre takes much longer than directing scenes, it was like a eureka moment. If you want to work physically, you have to accommodate it, and it takes a disproportionate amount of time.

We never want to update 'Black Watch,' because it's about a moment in time, and through that moment, it manages to speak about Afghanistan and all other wars. This play is 'about' Iraq, but it's actually about every war that's ever been or will ever be.

Philistines' was so beautiful, and it bored me to death. I never want to see another production where the rain splashes against a window and actors wander around in drab cardigans saying, 'I'm so bored.'

The power of imagination is infinite.

In film, if you've got to do a scene in a swimming pool, you do a scene in a swimming pool. If you've got to blow up a car, you blow up a car. In theater, you can't do that, and therefore, you have the opportunity to engage the audience's imagination in a way that's rich.