How Tom Stoppard foretold what we’re living through

A TV play by Tom Stoppard, A Separate Peace, was broadcast live on Zoom last Saturday. I watched as my screen divided itself into four cubes in which appeared the actors, performing from home. The play was written in 1964 and it’s well suited to the split-split screen format because no physical contact occurs between the characters. Director Sam Yates added some rudimentary music and a bit of wobbly background scenery.

Mr Brown (David Morrissey) is a mysterious Englishman who asks to be admitted to a private hospital in the middle of the night. Though he has no symptoms he’s given a bed, and he pays his bills in cash. ‘There’s nothing wrong with you,’ complain the medics. ‘That’s why I’m here,’ he says. ‘I came for the white calm, meals on trays and quiet efficiency.’ He recalls an experience during the war when he spent four years in a PoW camp far removed from the risks and stresses of fighting.