We were delighted that the 2011 Annual Lecture was given by Sir Tom Stoppard, one of the finest playwrights in the English language. Sir Tom's Lecture was entitled 'The Privilege of Artists'.
Tom Stoppard was born in 1937 in Czechoslovakia. His early years were spent in Singapore, India and, from 1946, England, after his mother married an officer in the British Army. Leaving school at seventeen, Stoppard worked as a reporter in Bristol, before moving to London to work as a theatre critic and feature writer. During this period he began to write plays for radio and for the stage and published his only novel, Lord Malquist and Mr Moon.
His first major success, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, was produced in London in 1967 at the Old Vic after critical acclaim at the Edinburgh Festival. Subsequent plays include Enter a Free Man, The Real Inspector Hound, Jumpers, Travesties, Night and Day, Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (with Andre Previn), After Magritte, Dirty Linen, The Real Thing, Hapgood, Arcadia, Indian Ink and The Invention of Love. His radio plays include If You're Glad, I'll Be Frank, Albert's Bridge, Where Are They Now?, Artist Descending a Staircase, The Dog It Was That Died and In the Native State. Work for television includes Professional Foul and Squaring the Circle. His film credits include Empire of the Sun, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, which he also directed, Shakespeare in Love (with Marc Norman) and Enigma.
In August 2002 the Royal National Theatre in London premièred Stoppard's trilogy - Voyage, Shipwreck and Salvage - three sequential self-contained plays that comprise The Coast of Utopia. His latest plays are Heroes (2005), and Rock n Roll (2006). He has written the screenplay for The Bourne Ultimatum, and a new English version of Chekov's Ivanov (2008).
Sir Tom is currently working on a five-part adaptation of Ford Maddox Ford’s Parade’s End for BBC2.
To listen to a clip of Sir Tom Stoppard's lecture given on Friday 3rd June in St George's Chapel, please click on the play button left. The full version and text is available to Associate Members on our Media page.
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