There was rage and pain and iron in him': Patrick Marber on the great hits and fond smokes he had with Tom Stoppard

"Tom was my hero from the night I first saw Travesties in 1979. I was 15. The older kids at school did a production of it and I was spellbound; it was glamorous, sensual and completely incomprehensible. I wanted to know everything about this cool, obscure playwright. I started in the school library with the Encyclopedia Brittanica. Then I read Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (incomprehensible) and then I read a third of Jumpers before giving up (totally incomprehensible)."

"A couple of years later, my first play, Dealer's Choice, had just opened at the National Theatre and Tom was on the board. Someone told me: Stoppard saw your play and mentioned it in some speech to donors as a good example of new writing at the NT. A week or so later, I met him at a drinks do. He approached me. He approached me. All hair and suit and cigs and warmth. He gave me a hug and told me I was a proper young playwright."

"Over the next 20 years, he saw all my work and I saw all of his. We corresponded by mail, had lunches, mutually commiserated our failures: Patrick, to be a playwright is to have one's heart broken every day. Said with a grin, always. He made me lunch (pasta) at his big flat in Chelsea and then gave me notes on my new play, Howard Katz: I don't think you should kill him off at the end. Condemn him to life. Much better."

The narrator first encountered Travesties in 1979 at age 15 and became captivated by Tom Stoppard's plays despite frequent incomprehension. The narrator read several Stoppard works and later studied him in university, then experienced renewed enchantment on seeing Arcadia in 1993. Stoppard publicly praised the narrator's early play at the National Theatre and then warmly approached and encouraged the narrator in person. Over twenty years they exchanged letters, lunches, criticism, and mutual commiseration. Stoppard offered practical dramaturgical advice and personal hospitality. In 2015 the narrator received a late-night call from Tom Stoppard that demanded immediate attention.

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