"To stop a writer's freedom is outrageous'

Sir Tom Stoppard is fighting for freedom of expression more than ever, says Robbie Griffiths

- Robbie Griffiths

I GREW up in an England which I learned to revere as being a place where certain virtues were actually invented, and free expression in the public print was one of them," says Sir Tom Stoppard, arguably Britain's greatest living dramatist. But Sir Tom is worried that the world of letters that he has worked in for almost seven decades isn't as free as it used to be. "People are now deemed to be much more needful of protection from any kind of a rebuke, reproach, criticism," he says. "There's a great sensitivity about how you can talk about anything which might obscurely offend part of the readership." We're sitting underground at the Hampstead Theatre, where the 86-year-old has just come out of a rehearsal for a revival of his play Rock'n'Roll, which debuted at the Royal Court in 2006.

Before we chat, the author of school staple Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead and Oscar-winning scriptwriter of Shakespeare in Love generously pulls out a chocolate mint bar for us to share. Munching on it, we discuss the new production, and why he wanted to be involved in the Evening Standard's Freedom of Speech campaign.

Sir Tom is a great believer in Britain, particularly for its freedoms, which he once felt we did better than most. Born in what was then Czechoslovakia, he arrived here at the age of eight, via stops in Singapore and India, after his Jewish family had been forced to flee on the day the Nazis invaded. That difficult youth gave Stoppard a lifelong admiration for our free press, and he proudly started a first career in journalism before writing drama.