Versions of Stoppard

By Victoria Glendinning

Tom Stoppard turned 75 this summer. There is a line of his on several quotations websites: “I think age is a very high price to pay for maturity.” Does he still think that? He tells the strange story of how he wrote those words, some time in the late 1960s, on a dressing-room wall, backstage at the rock musical “Hair”, for a friend who was appearing in it. “And then, years and years later, I was sent a photo of the same words written on a signboard in Hawaii, and this was pre-Twitter. It’s like one of Richard Dawkins’s memes, a cultural gene which spreads.”

Back to the subject: “I don’t like getting old.” Tentatively, I suggest this may be because when we are old we don’t know any more how we seem to other people. “I don’t think I ever present myself to other people,” he says. “Most of us are impersonating a version of ourselves.” The version of himself that Stoppard projects to the world is courteous, considerate, conscientious. If a comment strikes a wrong note, he responds at an angle, like a politician, or a poet, and with a hint of asperity. His pastime is fly-fishing, which demands quiet and patience. It is hard to imagine him getting really angry. “I lose my temper about things and people but not at people, or rarely."