Perhaps his most striking contribution has been to modify, with due agreement on all relevant sides, two of the main German characters Joey encounters once he is captured and set to work on the other side of the Trenches. “The weird thing I felt about the second half in the London production was that the characters of Friedrich and Klausen – who are in a position to become the new friends of the audience – are clearly outlined as war enemies. I had a strong sense that nobody would buy that over here. They had to be made more credible,” he says. “Friedrich, who’s a horse-lover, now conveys that on the German side many people were misled at the beginning – and even Klausen, who can be monstrous, is more multi-dimensional.”