An unlikely location for a theatre; the large pre-fab hall, in which I sat for my final exams at UNSW, had been converted into the Parade Theatre for the Old Tote Company. There in the latter 1960s we saw something thrillingly fresh and different; the local premiere of Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. Stoppard became a major force in drama. Knighted in 1987, Sir Tom was made a member of the Order of Merit a few years before Her Majesty personally extended that rare honour to John Howard.

Stoppard never stopped being thrilling, fresh and different. Born in the Czech Republic in 1937, he escaped the Nazis in early 1939 when his doctor father was transferred to Singapore, whence his mother took Tom and his brother to Darjeeling to next escape the Japanese. His father having died in Singapore, his mother married an Englishman, Major Stoppard, in 1945. Tom was educated at schools in England; he skipped university and went straight into journalism. His plays fascinatingly intermingle identity, time and place.

First produced here in 1995, the STC is mounting a new production of Stoppard’s Arcadia at the Opera House from 8 February. A beautiful, intriguing play, both funny and moving, it ranges from the Enlightenment to thermodynamics. Happily it will be directed by Richard Cottrell, a respecter of text and context. He has an attractive cast including Georgia Flood, Andrea Demetriades and Ryan Corr.