Hermione Lee and Tom Stoppard operate on very different sleep schedules. While writing her new biography of the British playwright, Lee would visit and sometimes stay overnight at Stoppard’s 1790s home in rural Dorset. The next morning, Lee “would be sitting there with my notebook from breakfast time onwards”, she laughs. “He’s more of a theatre time person. So he’d pick up energy in the evening – just as I was beginning to flag.”
Some lines of conversation energised him more than others – like his 1960s wardrobe, which prompted a long “terrific riff” about lime green Cuban heels, Biba silk scarves, and the tobacco-coloured suits with orange-blue linings he was fitted for at Mayfair’s Mr Fish boutique. At other times, “he would stop and give me one of those somewhat quizzical looks and say, ‘I can’t think what use this is going to be to you,’” Lee says. “I could tell when he was getting a bit bored – but he was very patient. And he never didn’t answer a question.”
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