That made things even harder. We knew there was a 25 per cent risk of something going wrong in surgery. At worst, she could die. When she smiled it made us feel even worse, but we knew she had to have the operation to have any real chance of living.

It was discovered that she had a floppy larynx. Every time she breathed it was sucking the larynx back into her windpipe, blocking it. The next day she was back in surgery again.

There was damage to the right side of her brain but, at that stage, we didn't know the extent of it.

The surgeon was very blunt with us. He said they had to operate or she would die. I hated him at first for saying it but we quickly grew to respect him. He turned out to be an amazing man.

I have always been interested in theater, as an actor and as someone who looks upon theater - at the risk of sounding pretentious - as an icon by which we measure society... My life has been in the theater to an extent. It's only an extension to write, direct, produce, whatever.

If you risk nothing, then you risk everything