Stoppard was a playwright never likely to stand still

David Lister recalls a brilliant, complicated and erudite man whose work explored politics, science, love – even rock'n'roll

- David Lister

When I think of Tom Stoppard, I think first of a rather trivial moment in his 1982 play The Real Thing, when the protagonist worried about the possibility that he might be asked to appear on Desert Island Discs.

He didn't like worthy classical music. And guests who did choose pop tended to choose something arty, like Pink Floyd. But he knew, to his despair, that he would end up selecting “Um Um Um Um Um Um” by Wayne Fontana and The Mindbenders.

It’s a very Stoppard moment - funny, self-deprecating, and in tune with popular culture across the decades.

But then I might think of the visual acrobatics (literally) in his play Jumpers, whose first run I saw in 1972, which mixed linguistics, philosophy, circus skills, and a mesmerising Diana Rigg making her entrance swinging on a papier mâché moon dressed in a fishnet. Jumpers saw Stoppard experiment with mathematical and scientific concepts, which would become pervasive themes in his plays. In this one, the protagonist mused that an arrow shot towards a target had to cover half the distance, and then half the remainder, and so on ad infinitum, “and Saint Sebastian died of fright”.

There was also his still underrated and little-seen TV play, Professional Foul, which aired on the BBC in 1977 and combined moral philosophy, international football, and totalitarian politics, to both hilarious and chilling effect.