Good writing is often about trying to investigate something you feel is missing and trying to put it back.

My greatest love is my children and they have inspired me to fight and stand up for the right things.

Even if youve been a coward all your life death is a heroic act.

Im a writer of fiction. I try to write about my time but its dangerous if Im seen as an investigative writer. I manipulate and change and control.

If youre dealing with a powerful leader youre inevitably going to have a dialogue with her political past. It was always my intention to interrogate Thatchers political life.

Of all the mediums theatre is the one where you really need to have something to say – because its just you the words and the space.

I know what its like to be brought up by actors and writers.

I think social media has reinvigorated peoples enthusiasm to be active and to engage.

Really feminism is just about equality and thats all. Its just saying equal rights.

I try to stay focused on the work and recognize that Ive been very lucky. Maybe its cause I grew up with actors but Ive seen that recognition comes and goes so all there really is is your family and friends. You have to maintain those constants in your life. Maintain whats beyond your work.

I think Im always running away from somewhere and to me theatres always felt like a good place to run away to.

Feminism isnt just for women. Its for men.

I hope my pieces have an authenticity to them but my job is to filter the world and tell a story not to define and recreate exactly whats going on.

My mother came to see me in a play when I was a student and afterwards I asked her what she thought. She said Honest opinion? No.

Most good work is a combination of parts you love and parts you could do better. My constant mantra is Next time next time next time.

One of the things I think I can do in my lifetime is stop to remind myself that – and keep affirming that – women can sell movies.

I didnt take into account the critical tsunami that comes with having work going out. Ive gone from being a complete narcissist someone who googles my own name to someone who has to work separately from that to avoid creative paralysis.

I understand this fear of the word feminism and I understand the fear of saying it because it becomes as divisive as sexism has become. But I know a lot of male feminists.

I never get writers block but I do have days where I crawl under the duvet.

Yes Ive heard of the Mad Men comparisons but I like to think The Hour has its own distinctive voice. Although it is set in 1956 I have tried to give it a contemporary edge and its themes of love passion fury professional jealousy and personal failure are universal

All work is a process of failure. Every single thing I write I look at it and go Do better. Thats not good enough. Do better. And so that keeps me up at night.

I spent most of the Seventies living in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and most of the Eighties living in Stoke-on-Trent.

I always say writing a play is like toothache: I find it incredibly painful and its only once the plays out that the pain is gone.

Writing a film is like giving birth to a baby and then giving it up for adoption.

I can understand a family thats imploding. I have experience of that in my own life.

Of course I am aware that there is a level of sexism in any large institution but I find in television and film most of the producers are women.