SOURCE: "Tom Stoppard: Serious Artist or Siren?" in Critical Quarterly, Vol. 20, No. 3, Autumn, 1978, pp. 84-92.

Attempting to assess Stoppard's view of drama, Roberts notes the playwright's ambiguous pronouncements about his own work.

Tom Stoppard's writing career is a remarkable one. Since 1963, when his play A Walk on the Water was transmitted on television a few days after the assassination of President Kennedy 'as a substitute for a play deemed inappropriate in the circumstances', he has had performed some eleven stage plays (including two adaptations), seven television plays, six radio plays and one music piece ('Every good boy deserves favour'). There have also been some short stories and a single novel. He is said by his agent to have 'grossed well over £300,000' from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead alone. He is the most consistently eulogised dramatist of our time. Only Beckett and Pinter, significantly, are able to match...