Tom Stoppard and Simon Russell Beale

An exhilarating combination: the playwright Tom Stoppard is interviewed by the actor Simon Russell Beale, who plays George in the current production of Jumpers, about this complex and dazzling play, first seen at the National in 1972.

"The new Radical Liberal Party has made the ex-Minister of Agriculture Archbishop of Cantebury, British astronauts are scrapping with each other on the moon and sprightly academics steal about London by night indulging in murderous gymnastics: this is the kind of manic, futuristic, topsy-turvy world in which Stoppard's dazzling play is set. And if I add that the influences apparently include Wittgenstein, Magritte, the Goons, Robert Dhery, Joe Orton and The Avengers, you will have some idea of the heady brew Stoppard has here concocted."
Michael Billington in The Guardian, 1972

Tom Stoppard and Simon Russell Beale finished on: 22 July 2003