Critics have always been interested in the gender politics of David Hare's work. In general this interest has resulted in a focus of attention on his female characters - understandably, since Hare, more than most male playwrights of his generation, has tended to write plays with large central parts for women. Hare has talked, too, of his ambition to write plays in which women would be 'represented as I thought more roundly and comprehensively than was then usual'. He has also attributed certain kinds of values to his female characters. 'Women', he has said, 'are characteristically the conscience of my plays. They often stand outside a man's world and so can see it much more clearly.' In Changing Stages Richard Eyre and Nicholas Wright put it in these terms: