Playwright Nina Raine on the difficulties of directing your own work

Guardian Unlimited Arts: "The qualities that make a good assistant director are diametrically opposed to those that make a good director. On his first day as assistant at the RSC, John Caird was asked to make his director a cup of tea. It came - deliberately - with a sinister metallic sheen. The director took one sip, and said, 'Well, I'm never asking you to do that again.' Next thing, Caird was directing Nicholas Nickleby with Trevor Nunn - as an equal, as co-director. Meekness, self-effacement, near invisibility are all excellent gopher qualities for an assistant director. But they are potentially catastrophic for a director."