I hope nobody will let their worries stop them coming to York Theatre Royal

I hope nobody will let their worries stop them coming to York Theatre Royal to experience her playing in the Mystery Plays. I would reassure people that we do take our responsibilities very seriously, and we are not out to shock or upset people. I'm not interested in maintaining a childlike illusion of God as an old man with a long white beard. The essential thing is to make this powerful medieval play as accessible and relevant as possible to a modern audience.I'm sorry if people have been offended by the choice of Ruth for this part - a lot of people have been delighted by it. It is a sensitive time for the church as it wrestles with its own internal problems over women, and I'm afraid we have touched a nerve somehow with this casting.The task for Ruth in playing this part has to be to make people ask questions, about themselves, about their assumptions, their pre-conceptions about how they see God, and even how they see men and women.

It seems that seeing a woman in this role at this particular time is making them ask fundamental questions about their church and their beliefs. In the past, God has been played by a child, and by a disembodied voice - this is just another way of interpreting the role.The criticism we have had from some churchmen seems to be much more to do with their internal politics than our play. There won't be any feminising to the text, which is based on the original 13th-century text, and was revived in 1951 as part of the Festival of Britain, and has been performed in York every four years or so ever since. She struck me as someone who would bring a tremendous amount from her own life to the role - compassion, humour, joy, love and care - all the attributes one might hope to find in God. I did wonder about whether she could embody God's wrath, but then I thought wrath can't just be a man's domain. The way I see the role played is all about the personality of the person playing it - not about their gender.

The original intention was to have a professional actor to play God. Then we started auditioning for the amateur actors who get involved in the play - 120 local people take part At the auditions I met Ruth Ford, who runs a local shop. Now the liberal cannot define the limits of his liberalism, because any such definition would be regarded as illiberal, a hopeless, doomed attempt to impose his values on the people.The truth is that gambling is bad for you, a stupid, risky waste of time and money The question is: who is going to say it, now that we can't?. I have been called a pagan and a radical feminist, foolish and naive. My crime? Casting a woman in the role of God in the mystery plays to be staged at York's Theatre Royal I certainly did not set out to create a controversy I didn't even set out to cast a woman in the role. Paternalism cannot survive the option of the open market.But paternalism is only a rather derogatory word for a system which aspires to define the good in higher terms than mere convenience.

Liberal paternalism was an attempt to devise such a system for a secular society It failed. Any liberalisation will produce contradictions that will undermine any intended restraints. If, electorally, we said we wanted to re-impose such restraints we would have to do so against the expressed wishes of huge numbers of people. The lottery and the ensuing proposed changes to the laws are simply the most vivid demonstrations of a general trend.

If what the people want is manifested by what they do, then democracy is logically obliged to give them what they want.Attempts at social legislation collide with this complexity. In theory we might express the desire for control, but in practice we indulge in a big way. Who, after all, is "we" if it is not "us"? Democracy is legitimised by the people, we are the people and, clearly, we like gambling. The Sixties legalisation of gambling was a clear example of liberal social control - you can gamble but we will look after you But the "we" in that formula has become problematic. The movement from legalised disapproval to deregulation and "an important part of the British economy" is a movement away from post-war paternalism. So, on the demand side, we are all gamblers now and, on the supply side, the industry and the new punters will expect more freedom and variety in their betting outlets.But the deeper issue is how we define and defend social goods. In the long term I suspect the pressures of this contradiction will lead to an even more radical programme of deregulation.