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He is keen to draw parallels between the Edwardian era that is depicted and the present-day economic and social malaise.

“We are living under illusions that are similar to Edwardian delusions of empire and power and state, where ridiculous trade-offs in diplomacy are discussed over fine wines between the landed gentry who are deciding the fates of millions,” he says.

“My character, Tietjens, is all about duty and how duty is much more important than your own well-being. We don’t have that now. Cameron’s Big Society is just a terrible bit of window dressing for the fact that the government is withdrawing its support for the basic fabric of society and the most needy, the most poor, the most at risk, in favour of bailing out the money system, which we know now is teetering on the brink of utter corruption. It is all happening before our very eyes.

“The irony of the First World War was that two deaths - That’s archduke Ferdinand and the other one I always forget - resulted in millions of deaths. Now, through rogue trading and betting on unstable equities, the actions of a few have bankrupted millions in this world. Yet still they are getting away with it. The system hasn’t changed, they haven’t been imprisoned…”

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By accident this is the second project I did last year which has a grand metaphor and is really saying we are now going to reap what we have sown. Frankenstein was all about the idea that through electricity and the destruction of night, man creating light and darkness, we took on god like powers and then abused them like gods and we are only men. That a story about man making a man in his own image. The inversion of natural order. And whether you have belief in religion or not it’s more about the fact that we’ve taken our resources well beyond their capability to sustain the development that our excursions into technology have needed. I think both of them are warnings. Parade’s End is more in line with man destroying man in all out war.