Mike Leigh is one of the country’s most beloved and respected film-makers. A versatile and humanist director, he has explored themes as diverse as camping holidays in Nuts in May (1976), middle-class soirees in Abigail’s Party (1977), adoption and class in Secrets & Lies (1996), illegal abortion in Vera Drake (2004), unusual driving lessons in Happy-Go-Lucky (2008), and, in 2014’s Mr Turner, the final years of the Romantic painter.

Next, Leigh turns his eye to the 1819 Peterloo massacre. The bloodiest political clash in British history, which led to the formation of the Manchester Guardian two years later, saw government forces clash with peaceful protesters, killing an estimated 18 people and injuring more than 650. Leigh grew up near St Peter’s Field in Manchester, where the massacre happened, but says he never learned about it in school. He has called for it to be put on the national curriculum, and his forthcoming film, starring Maxine Peake and Rory Kinnear, seeks to redress the balance.

The Observer is offering readers the chance to put a question to the director. Submit your questions in the comments section below, email us at review@observer.co.uk, or tweet @ObsNewReview by midday on Monday 1 October. A selection of the best questions will be used and the interview will appear in the New Review next month.

Kathryn Bromwich

Quotes from Mike Leigh to get you started

On his films
“My films aspire to the condition of documentary... what I want to do is create a world with that kind of solidity to it, something so three-dimensional and solid you can cut it with a knife.”

On his improvisation technique
“My job is to liberate the actors and give them immense scope to be creative.”

On filming Peterloo
“Nearly every day we became incredibly aware of how incredibly relevant and prescient it was becoming in terms of what’s happening in the world today, with democracy and truth, with people in poverty and the divide between the people who have and who don’t have, who have power and who don’t have power.”

On politics
“Now the tragedy is we have the vote but people don’t vote. People are complacent and cynical.”

On TV
“University Challenge. I’m a sucker for it.”