The film was produced by Colin Firth (along with Ged Doherty), and it was his idea to cast Rickman, who is perfect as the pompous but rational Benson. ‘We walk a fine line in the film and I hope we find it,’ says director Gavin Hood. ‘We want to allow the audience to laugh at the sheer absurdity of the situation, and I think Alan Rickman is wonderful at delivering the prescient lines.’

When the point is made that it’s all very well ordering carnage from the comfort of an office, Benson sharply defends himself: having witnessed the aftermath of several suicide bombs, he says, ‘Never tell a soldier that he doesn’t know the cost of war.’

It was Hood who chose Abdi for the part of Jama Farah. He says, ‘I saw Barkhad, as so many of us did, in Captain Phillips, and I thought that he was absolutely extraordinary. This raw, honest power that he had – in that part he could so easily have been simply unlikeable. He delivers all of that inner anger, but there’s a vulnerability in the character, and a kindness at moments, which is only just peeking through, but in our film that warmth is what Jama Farah is all about.