PLAYWRIGHT Sir Tom Stoppard, who was born in the former Czechoslovakia in 1937, has died at the age of 88. A statement from United Agents said: ‘We are deeply saddened to announce that our beloved client and friend, Tom Stoppard, has died peacefully at home in Dorset, surrounded by his family.
‘He will be remembered for his works, for their brilliance and humanity, and for his wit, his irreverence, his generosity of spirit and his profound love of the English language.
‘It was an honour to work with Tom and to know him.’
A Dorset life
He lived near Shaftesbury and, despite his international profile and long list of major stage, writing and film awards, was actively supportive of the local arts, theatre and music in the area.
There was an early stage performance of his 1967 radio play Albert’s Bridge at the chapel theatre at Shaftesbury School, which he attended. More recently, Shaftesbury Arts Centre staged a very successful production of his first major success, the Hamlet-inspired black comedy, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead – he sent a message to director Carolyn Hopkins.
Earlier this year, he attended a concert by young singers at the Springhead Constellation academy residency at Fontmell Magna.
Stoppard’s family fled imminent Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia. He went to school in Darjeeling, India, and came with his family to England after the war. He worked as a reporter on the Evening Post in Bristol before making his name as a playwright. His most famous plays include Jumpers (1972), Travesties (1974), Night and Day (1978), The Real Thing (1982), Arcadia (1993), The Invention of Love (1997) and his final play, finished at the age of 83, the epic Leopoldstadt (2020). The title refers to Vienna’s Jewish district and it is intensely personal. Nearly all of his close relatives, including all four of his grandparents, were murdered in Nazi concentration camps. ‘I knew I wanted to write a kind of oblique version of my family background,’ he told The New Yorker. At the same time, he realised his play tells the story of ‘tens of thousands’ of others.
Among his screenplays were Brazil (1985), Empire of the Sun (1987), the Oscar-winning Shakespeare in Love (1998), and the BBC/HBO Parade’s End (2013). He was knighted for his contribution to theatre by Queen Elizabeth II in 1997 and awarded the Order of Merit in 2000.
