Tom Stoppard was another human being, despite the contrary evidence provided by a creative mind from outer space. I had known him for years and was well aware that I would never meet anyone quite so clever. But he was one of those rare clients who made me wonder whether a pre-interview was any use. He had given the ferret a set of shapely answers but when I reproduced the same questions in the studio he steered clear of giving the same answers again. He looked for different words, which took time, so the hair-trigger effect he gave in real life was slowed down to mere articulacy. He changed
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