The Independent from London, Greater London, England • 96

ARTS TOM AND By Robert Butler 'Oh God, what a great In 30 years, only one play has aroused Tom Stoppard's envy: Peter Shaffer's 'Black Comedy'. Now it's being paired with The Real Inspector Hound'. The playwrights talk it over Albert Finney were wanting to do Miss Julie at Chichester, which is an awkward length. It's an hour and 20 minutes -ifs a bit awkward asking people to come all the way down to Chichester for that time. Have you anything in your bottom drawer? And I said, no, I don't really.

But as we were talking I suddenly thought if awfully gloomy, that play. Jt can be very depressing, a fiercely dark play. You can't follow it obviously, with another play of that intensity. Even if you could write one. Ifsalnratbeggingfbrafarce.Ibeganto talk to Ken, who had seen that mime, about mat convention.

I had no idea for aplay. And then Ken, being very gung-ho about looking for new material he was the dramaturg bore me off to see Olivier, and I kept saying, mere isn't a play, it's just a convention, I haven't got Shaffer Breathtaking. Stoppard: And the swords were just swishing by. Shaffer It was terrifying. And that was fascinating, because the audience was sort of laughing, butma hysterical way.

And I began to mink of farce being so like mekxirama in mis kind of feeling. Stoppard: I remember one part where they were creeping around the room, not knowing where the other was, and they were approaching each other back to bade. They were terrified of being hit by a sword at any moment and men their backs must have touched, and they just sprang apart Shaffer Thafs right Even then, I was terribly aware of mis electric feeling in the audience. They were divided between hysterical laughter and laughter of fear. I remember thinking what fun it CWEACT plays can beaEttieKkekmdy hearts: single, long-term ccmpanion.

This month, tvroraie-aders in their thirties have a blind date in the West End. Sam Mendes's new company, Warehouse Productions, an offshoot from the Donmar, unites two hits from the Sixties: Peter Shaffer's Blade Comedy, which premiered in 1965 as a National Theatre production at Chichester with Maggie Smith, Albert Finney and Derek Jacobi; and Tom Stoppard's The Real Inspector Hound, which premiered in 1968 at the Criterion with Richard Briers and Ronnie Barker. In this new double bill, directed by Gregory Doran, one cast which includes Desmond Barritt, Anna Chancellor and Sara Crowe-appears in both plays. Tom Stoppard and Peter Shaffer are downstairs at Pegs, a club in Covent Garden of which neither is a member While the photographer takes the pictures, these two- who have known each other for more than 30 years -have been chatting about the masteidasses you receive when you work with Peter HalL As the photographer clears his equipment, the lights go out We are in darkness while the dub staff search for the right switch. This, as we will see, is an apt moment Could I take you both bad to the time when you wrote these one-act plays, and the ideas that prompted them 1 Shaffer In my case it was Chinese theatre.

It was the Peking Opera, which came to London in 1955. The excerpt from the Chinese play mat I had seen -1 think the play was called WhaeThrec Roads knew nothing about what the play was about this excerpt was a scene in a country irm. It involved only two people, a warrior who went to bed, and through an open window -the window was merely sketched -a bandit appeared. This man heard the noise of In the David the bandit and reached for his sword and they fought The point of it was that it was performed in the brightest pos-sible light white light pouring light -mat was representing, of course, darkness. And it was very scary, because the swords missed each other by a tiny hair's breadth.

They were quite obvi-cnisty real swords. Ivou see it, Tom? Stoppard: I saw it on film. Not the whole piece. But I have seen what you are talking about It was a section of a film that was generally about Chinese theatre. I remember just seeing a few minutes of the fight in the dark and it was breathtaking.

18 INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY 12 a play and anyway I going 3 to NewYork. And Larry, who had this extraordinary stare 8 that just looked straight a through you, didn't see you, an unseeing eye, he didn't say anything, he just listened and said, 'ifs all going to be 5 thrilling'. i Stoppard: How long before rehearsals was it? Shaffer About two months, or even less? Stoppard: Christ! Shaffer It was absolutely paralysing. Ifeflintoacompletedol-drum about mis. I was actually going to ring up and say, I can't do it I was paralysed.

And I said, come on Rater, what's the problem? And you talk to yourself, or at least I do, and I said, well, the problem is that no one would stay in the dark. They wouldn't put up with it There'd be candles and matches, whatever. Or if there weren't they'd just abandon it and go tome pub. How do you solve such a problem? And a very dear answer came to me. There must be one of them in the room who has a reason for keeping everyone in me dark What could mat must be expecting someone very important -a multi-millionaire so you can't just leave and why-why-why would you keep anyone in the dark? Because you've stolen something belonging to one of the others.

Lots of things. And it all began to tumble out very quickly. They've stolen all the furniture. Then you have something like the sword, and the fighting, and ifs also mime. The dialogue is just fiDer if it works weL So the situation you gave yourself wrote the plot.

Shaffer I'm afraid it did. Actually, Fve never thought of it like mat Thafsright metaphorical dark: Anna Chancellor Gary Waldhorn, Tennant and Sara Crowe in Shaffer's 'Black Comedy would be if one could adapt in some way, that convention to an English farce. I always wanted to do an English farce. Thafs to say, to play a game with almost stockpkire cards-trie peppery cotoneL the comic foreigner, the timid spinster, Stoppard: Guedo characters raised to art. Did you say 1955? Shaffer Yes.

Stoppard: I was going to say, you sat on this for 10 years. Shaffer Ididn'tthmkanymingaboutit until Ken Tynan said Maggie Smith and TLA APRIL 1998.