John Wilson

And I think the culmination of that was working on Electra, which is the ultimate sort of story of daughters and fathers and was written 2600 years ago and is so unbelievably on it as far as emotion is concerned.

It's extraordinary.

Just doing that play really put it to bed.

And actually, funnily enough, after doing that play, I decided, right, no more tragedies.

I've spent it all.

Now I want to tell happy stories and not stories about pent up rage or grief.

So I don't want to tell those stories anymore.

I want to tell stories that make people feel warm and fuzzy, basically, instead of leaving the place in floods of tears.

What sort of cultural upbringing did you have as a child and cultural education?

We lived in the depths of Dorset and with very little access to anything apart from television.

And my mother was really good at sort of taking us to places and she would take me to places.

shows that she wanted to see, maybe in Bath or in Bournemouth or wherever.

When did you first start thinking that acting might be something you could do?

I think I was about four.

Right, OK.

And I would go down to the village shop when I was about eight, convinced that the lady running the village shop, Mrs Vendyback, wouldn't recognise me because I had a headscarf on and dressed as the Queen or something.

And I was going down to the village shop.

You were already playing characters?

Yeah, already playing characters.

I must have been insufferable, actually.