Above all, there is a delight in the punning possibilities of language that makes him one of theatre’s most accomplished wordsmiths. Stoppard also has the capacity to bring unlikely opposites into flamboyant juxtaposition. In Stoppard’s work there is always an intellectual exhilaration that led Jeremy Treglown to describe him as a “one-man Adult Education Centre”.
Although he has changed and developed as a writer, some qualities are constant from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966) to Rock’n’Roll (2006). His virtues as a dramatist are by now well known. Stoppard is a writer capable of inciting admiration, awe and astonishment as well as a baffled bewilderment, sometimes all in the same evening. But although I’ve reported on every Stoppard first night over the last half-century, I still haven’t come to any definite conclusion about his status as a dramatist. All I know about The Hard Problem is that it will be directed by Nicholas Hytner and concerns a young psychology researcher wrestling with the conflict between matter and consciousness. Now, nearly 50 years later, I find myself in pre-match training for a new Stoppard play at the National Theatre. They were called If You’re Glad I’ll Be Frank and The Dissolution of Dominic Boot, and they revealed a whimsical absurdity and formal brilliance that were instantly striking. As a young freelance, newly arrived in London, I was asked by Philip French in 1966 to do a review for the BBC Third Programme of two radio plays by a then unknown Tom Stoppard. I feel I’ve measured out my working life in Stoppard plays.
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