Sir Tom Stoppard

Telegraph | Opinion | Profile: Sir Tom Stoppard :
"When Harold Pinter was lobbying to have London's Comedy Theatre renamed the Pinter Theatre, Stoppard wrote back: 'Have you thought, instead, of changing your name to Harold Comedy?' His liking for Lady Thatcher appears to have a theatrical as well as ideological dimension, for he saw in her radicalism the seeds of great drama. 'In the period before the arrival of Mrs Thatcher,' he once said, 'politics had been in such low esteem. Everything was so hedged, so mealy-mouthed. Then along came this woman who seemed to have no manners at all and said exactly what she thought. Everyone's eyes were popping and their jaws were dropping, and I really enjoyed that.'"