The basics:
Tom Stoppard is the genius behind the short play "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern meet King Lear", which blossomed into the play and later the film we all know and love. When asked what it was about, he flippantly replied "It's about to make me rich." Wise words: he now has a whole host of dramatic classics under his belt, mostly containing a comic mesh of serious political and philosophical debate and absurdist wordplay. R+GaD is the only one of his plays to have been given the cinema treatment so far, and it's pretty likely to stay that way. A fair number don't really lend themselves to film anyway (Jumpers, I'm thinking of you...). He did however lend a hand on a whole host of scripts, most importantly Shakespeare in Love (which got Oscars...unfortunately I am sick beyond sick of this film, because our teachers drag it out every few months and make us watch it) and Brazil (which I urge you to see if you haven't, and urge you to see again if you have...). You probably knew most of that already. If not, here's a bit more...

Oh, and I saw the back of his neck once when he and his friends turned up at last minute and pinched my box at Rock and Roll. But I think we can forgive him that...

According to Travesties, "He has been known to respond to polite correspondence...Who's Who lists his address as c/o Peters, Fraser & Dunlop, Drury House, 34-43 Russell Street, London WC2B 5HA, England."


Wikipedia here we go, ho hum. A nice biography, but the best part is the information on the plays: a brief description of the themes and plot for each of them. It’s a great place to start if you’ve only read one or two of them.

Imdb also has a page for his film work

"Travesties" - as the guy himself notes, it’s not been updated in years. But he hits the nail on the head a second time when he comments that he started the page because there were no others. Believe me, there really aren’t. This is the second best site on the web. The first is the blog associated with the site, which is scarily up to date, and which I have already linked to at least once elsewhere.

I'm going to say it once more in case you missed it. Here.


Sites with a biography and list of plays – because after a while, there’s really nothing between them.

Stage Door - a basic bibliography come biography, all completed in lovely blue bold type.

Curtain up - less actual biographical information, but more interesting for people who can't be bothered to read.

Imagi-nation - this one has amazon links to all his plays...

Theatre Database - yawn...

The Columbia Encyclopedia manages it in a paragraph and a half.

The Guardian's slightly more interesting take.


Sites which are slightly different to that

He has a fairly active livejournal community, full of fans who regularly post interviews, links and info.

Bibliography – this site is brilliant. Boring, but brilliant. It’s got details of not only every work, but every edition of every work he’s ever put on paper. Which may strike you as singularly useless, but I’m sure there are good uses the information can be put to. “In addition to a primary and secondary bibliography of the published works of Tom Stoppard, this website contains information on works that have not been published, and a chronology of the major events in his life.” So now you know.

Contempotarywriters - biography, playlist, awardlist, natch. It also a nice little critical analysis by a guy my English teacher likes. He believes TS is “hungry for some kind of secure, post-Christian value-system”. Garn, don’t you just love people’s interpretations of literature?

a small fan page -with fanwords which will be enjoyed by anyone who just likes reading about people who love things you love.

The first chapter of a serious book of essays. Pity the whole thing isn't there - I'd like to read some of the other chapters.

A serious essay/analysis-cum-serious squeeing session. Highly recommended.

An shortish review of a book about him. I only list it because it's fairly interesting in its own right.

A cool literature map, with floating links to similar authors. I don't recognise half of them (oops...) so I can't say how accurate it is.

A large Arcadia page, created as a study guide. Now I haven't read Arcadia yet (mybad...), but this is highly recommended if you have or are in the process of doing so. Among other things, it has essays about the ideas behind the play and a glossary of allusions and definitions.

This is more than a mere biography, from the Guardian. Perhaps I'm saying that because it is longer than most and contains more words than dates, but oh well. Pretty interesting.


And he speaks…

quotes page -I’d like to discuss the metaphysical metaphor and deep political undertones underpinning his work; but this (very small) page reminds us that occasionally he comes up with some real howlers.

Wikiquote - ditto. But more quotes. And the digital watch quote is quoted correctly in its less funny form.

Pragmatic Theatre - a nice speech by TS on goodness knows what.

A conversation with an audience just around the time of "The Invention of Love" (or should that be Housman?)

A chat with Elizabeth Farnsworth

A conversation on KQED.This is a recorded interview which you will have to stream. Journalism, Night and Day, adapting for film, naming characters, Brazil, and a phone-in. I found my attention wavering, but there is a wonderful moment when he meets a relative of one of the characters from his play.

A conversation with BBC3. You can either listen or read the transcript. Reading is far quicker, but I do recommend hearing him speak for a little while. He's got a wonderful accent. I recommend this one - it's fairly long, and general (not focusing on specific plays, it's more of an overview)

An up to date conversation in light of his upcoming adaption of "His Dark Materials".


Comments? Love? Relentless squeeing? Found a site I missed? Think I was too mindlessly dismissive and nasty in the biography section (it's honestly only a case of me being one page away from being finished, tired out, fed up of the web, being a life long hater of the "lets look for the artist in his own works" movement and listening to too much Rick Wakeman...) Email me, or just pop a comment here:
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