And it's a crime because the great plays of history, going all the way back to the Greeks, are part of everybody's heritage. It's just like in music, Beethoven or Mozart, that's everybody's heritage. ↗
A lot of my stories are inspired by Japanese folklore or literature or movies: I've done stories based on Kabuki and Noh plays, and on Kurosawa's 'Yojimbo' movies. ↗
Most of my career has been spent with the RSC doing Shakespeare, and the thing you learn from Shakespeare is that his historical plays don't bear anything other than a basic resemblance to history. ↗