Have the carping critics put a stop to Stoppard?

He is considered one of the greatest living playwrights in Britain, but is the curtain falling on sir Tom stoppard’s glittering career? Friends of the award-winning Czech-born dramatist (pictured right) are concerned that his confidence has been crushed following mixed reviews for his latest play The Hard Problem.

‘Tom’s play didn’t go as well as it should have done,’ says his friend and fellow playwright sir Ronald Harwood, who won an Oscar for his screenplay of The Pianist. ‘Whether he’ll do anything again now is the interesting thing, because he didn’t have a good reception. it can put you off.’

The Hard Problem, which finished its five-month run at the National Theatre this week, was stoppard’s first new stage play since Rock ’n’ Roll in 2006. But he was plagued by writer’s block during its creation, admitting ‘my brain isn’t good enough any more’. The drama about the nature of consciousness f i nally opened in January, with one theatre critic calling it ‘a major disappointment’.

stoppard, 77, has since defended the play, saying modern audiences don’t understand his jokes and he was forced to dumb down the literary allusions: ‘it’s very rare to connect an audience except on a level which is lower than you would want to connect them on.’

speaking to me at a book launch in London’s Holland Park, Harwood clearly agrees: ‘so many of the literary references Tom likes to make were taken out because today’s audience is so different. We’re less knowledgeable about these things and it’s a great shame.’

stoppard’s private life has drawn as much attention as his drama. The father-offour left his second wife Dr Miriam stoppard for actress Felicity Kendal, with whom he had an eightyear r el ati onship. Last June he married for a third time, to banking heiress sabrina Guinness.