Sir Tom Stoppard, the British playwright whose quicksilver dialogue and philosophical daring reshaped late-20th-century theatre, has died aged 88 at his home in Dorset.

Born Tomáš Sträussler in 1937 in Czechoslovakia, Stoppard fled the Nazi invasion with his family, later settling in England as a teenager. He famously described himself as a “bounced Czech”.

That outsider’s vantage point – mixed with a voracious appetite for literature, mathematics, science and political history – became the foundation of a career that spanned more than 60 years and produced some of the most celebrated plays of the modern repertoire.

Tom Stoppard (1990). Photo WikiMedia Commons

Stoppard began writing short radio plays in 1953–54 and by 1960 had completed his first stage play, A Walk on the Water, which was staged in Hamburg, then broadcast on British Independent Television (ITV) in 1963.

After a brief stint as a drama critic for Scene magazine (writing reviews and interviews both under his name and the pseudonym William Boot), Stoppard received a Ford Foundation grant enabling a five-month stay in a Berlin mansion. There he wrote a one-act play titled Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Meet King Lear, which later evolved into his Tony-winning play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

That play, an absurdist inversion of Hamlet, became a sensation at the Edinburgh Festival before transferring to the National Theatre. Stoppard went on to write more than two dozen stage works, including Travesties, The Real Thing, Arcadia, Rock ’n’ Roll and, most recently, Leopoldstadt, a deeply personal drama drawing on his Jewish heritage.

He also enjoyed significant screen success, sharing an Academy Award for the screenplay of Shakespeare in Love and contributing to films including Brazil, Empire of the Sun and Anna Karenina.

The West End cast of Leopoldstadt. Photo © Marc Brenner

Australian theatre companies were early and enthusiastic adopters of Stoppard’s work. In 1969, the Ensemble Theatre Company and The Old Tote Theatre Company presented two of the country’s first major productions (of The Real Inspector Hound and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, respectively), helping introduce his voice to Australian audiences absorbing a wave of contemporary international playwrights.

The UK’s National Theatre toured its production of Jumpers to Australia in 1972.

Through the 1970s and ’80s, his plays were routinely staged by the Sydney Theatre Company, Melbourne Theatre Company and state companies around the country, often becoming touchstones for local directors eager to test themselves against his intellectual rigour.

Tim Minchin and Toby Schmitz in Sydney Theatre Company’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Photo © Heidrun Lohr

A landmark revival arrived in 2013 when Sydney Theatre Company mounted Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in a widely praised production directed by Simon Phillips and starring Tim Minchin and Toby Schmitz. The company has also staged Travesties, The Real Thing and Arcadia.

Queensland Theatre, Black Swan State Theatre Company and numerous independent companies have also kept Stoppard’s titles in regular rotation, attesting to their ongoing appeal for performers and audiences alike.

Knighted in 1997, Stoppard received numerous accolades, including multiple Tony and Olivier Awards. His influence is such that “Stoppardian” entered the critical vocabulary (and the Oxford English Dictionary), describing works marked by verbal ingenuity, layered structures and philosophical sweep.