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The Real Inspector Hound and Other Plays
Culled from nearly twenty years of the playwright’s career, a showcase for Tom Stoppard’s dazzling range and virtuosic talent, The Real Inspector Hound and Other Plays is essential reading for fans of modern drama. The plays in this collection reveal Stoppard’s sense of fun, his sense of theater, his sense of the absurd, and his gifts for parody and satire.
Includes:
“The Real Inspector Hound”
“After Margritte”
“Dirty Linen”
“New-Found-Land”
“Dogg’s Hamlet”
“Cahoot’s Macbeth”
Includes:
“The Real Inspector Hound”
“After Margritte”
“Dirty Linen”
“New-Found-Land”
“Dogg’s Hamlet”
“Cahoot’s Macbeth”
224 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1974
47 people are currently reading
965 people want to read
About the author
Tom Stoppard
191 books987 followersSir Tom Stoppard is a Czech-born British playwright and screenwriter. He has written for film, radio, stage, and television, finding prominence with plays. His work covers the themes of human rights, censorship, and political freedom, often delving into the deeper philosophical thematics of society. Stoppard has been a playwright of the National Theatre and is one of the most internationally performed dramatists of his generation. He was knighted for his contribution to theatre by Queen Elizabeth II in 1997.
Born in Czechoslovakia, Stoppard left as a child refugee, fleeing imminent Nazi occupation. He settled with his family in Britain after the war, in 1946, having spent the previous three years (1943–1946) in a boarding school in Darjeeling in the Indian Himalayas. After being educated at schools in Nottingham and Yorkshire, Stoppard became a journalist, a drama critic and then, in 1960, a playwright.
Stoppard's most prominent plays include Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966), Jumpers (1972), Travesties (1974), Night and Day (1978), The Real Thing (1982), Arcadia (1993), The Invention of Love (1997), The Coast of Utopia (2002), Rock 'n' Roll (2006) and Leopoldstadt (2020). He wrote the screenplays for Brazil (1985), Empire of the Sun (1987), The Russia House (1990), Billy Bathgate (1991), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Enigma (2001), and Anna Karenina (2012), as well as the HBO limited series Parade's End (2013). He directed the film Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990), an adaptation of his own 1966 play, with Gary Oldman and Tim Roth as the leads.
He has received numerous awards and honours including an Academy Award, a Laurence Olivier Award, and five Tony Awards. In 2008, The Daily Telegraph ranked him number 11 in their list of the "100 most powerful people in British culture". It was announced in June 2019 that Stoppard had written a new play, Leopoldstadt, set in the Jewish community of early 20th-century Vienna. The play premiered in January 2020 at Wyndham's Theatre. The play went on to win the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play and later the 2022 Tony Award for Best Play.
Born in Czechoslovakia, Stoppard left as a child refugee, fleeing imminent Nazi occupation. He settled with his family in Britain after the war, in 1946, having spent the previous three years (1943–1946) in a boarding school in Darjeeling in the Indian Himalayas. After being educated at schools in Nottingham and Yorkshire, Stoppard became a journalist, a drama critic and then, in 1960, a playwright.
Stoppard's most prominent plays include Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1966), Jumpers (1972), Travesties (1974), Night and Day (1978), The Real Thing (1982), Arcadia (1993), The Invention of Love (1997), The Coast of Utopia (2002), Rock 'n' Roll (2006) and Leopoldstadt (2020). He wrote the screenplays for Brazil (1985), Empire of the Sun (1987), The Russia House (1990), Billy Bathgate (1991), Shakespeare in Love (1998), Enigma (2001), and Anna Karenina (2012), as well as the HBO limited series Parade's End (2013). He directed the film Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990), an adaptation of his own 1966 play, with Gary Oldman and Tim Roth as the leads.
He has received numerous awards and honours including an Academy Award, a Laurence Olivier Award, and five Tony Awards. In 2008, The Daily Telegraph ranked him number 11 in their list of the "100 most powerful people in British culture". It was announced in June 2019 that Stoppard had written a new play, Leopoldstadt, set in the Jewish community of early 20th-century Vienna. The play premiered in January 2020 at Wyndham's Theatre. The play went on to win the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Play and later the 2022 Tony Award for Best Play.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 75 reviews
December 21, 2017
I am honestly not entirely sure what I thought of this?
(NB: I only read The Real Inspector Hound, not any of the other plays.)
On the one hand, it was a fun little one act play that took me around twenty minutes to read, and it made me laugh, and it made me go, what the hell? On the other hand, I'm 100% positive I missed things, and the cleverness of this play almost entirely went over my head.
I actually read this for Cannonball Read's quarterly online book club, and here's all I could think of to say in our discussion was a bunch of pretentious bullshit about the relationship between art and critics, which I then finished up with, "Or Stoppard could just be fucking with us." (Spoiler: there's a dead body on the stage the whole time which turns out to be a theater critic whose actual body (OR IS IT) is being used as a prop. This is SIGNIFICANT.)
The consensus seems to be that this play is both: Pretentious bullshit AND fucking with us.
I kinda dig it? I wish I could see it in person, though. Maybe I'll track down that YouTube performance and see how it goes in its proper format . . .
(NB: I only read The Real Inspector Hound, not any of the other plays.)
On the one hand, it was a fun little one act play that took me around twenty minutes to read, and it made me laugh, and it made me go, what the hell? On the other hand, I'm 100% positive I missed things, and the cleverness of this play almost entirely went over my head.
I actually read this for Cannonball Read's quarterly online book club, and here's all I could think of to say in our discussion was a bunch of pretentious bullshit about the relationship between art and critics, which I then finished up with, "Or Stoppard could just be fucking with us." (Spoiler: there's a dead body on the stage the whole time which turns out to be a theater critic whose actual body (OR IS IT) is being used as a prop. This is SIGNIFICANT.)
The consensus seems to be that this play is both: Pretentious bullshit AND fucking with us.
I kinda dig it? I wish I could see it in person, though. Maybe I'll track down that YouTube performance and see how it goes in its proper format . . .
August 21, 2022
Tom Stoppard has long been one of my favorite playwrights. Because he can be very wordy and his humor both dry and playing to the educated, many have neither the patience nor the willingness to go where he takes his audiences. When his humor misses or is too far out, you can be trapped in a bad live performance without a channel changer. The collection of one act plays included in The Real Inspector Hound and Other Plays, lead with a very funny extended sketch and for me did not keep up. Not bing that dogmatic about spoiler alerts, I read this book just befor a live performance of the title play, The real Inspector Hound.
Of this play I and to my surprise The Wife had a lot of fun. As is often the case for me I can miss things that are on the page only to find them much more entertaining on the stage. Hound is a smart farce on both the authors of reviews and Mouse Trap type manor house play.
Consider the reviewer, writing before the end of the Play in the play’s first act:
Already in the opening stages we note the classic
impact of the catalystic figure-the outsider-plunging through to the
center of an ordered world and setting up the disruptions-the shock
waves-which unless I am much mistaken, will strip these comfortable
people-these crustaceans in the rock pool of society-strip them of
their shells and leave them exposed as the trembling raw meat which, at
heart, is all of us. But there is more to it than that-
This Reviewer, Moon an have no idea about the play but has already begun to meet his word count with so much reviewer’s cliché. And while I think of it, how many scholarly papers contain this same muck?
Then comes the one person Greek Chorus, Ms Drudge, The house maid, of courseproviding important background and being the concenient silent witness to many arch threats:
MRS DRUDGE
Yes, many visitors have remarked on the topographical quirk in the local strata whereby there are no roads leading from the Manor, though there are ways of getting to it, weather allowing.
So bottom line of this play, lots of fun and satire all around.
Next up is After Margrette. Another farce, this time more aimed at the know-it-all solver of crimes who seeming invents plot and solutions out of thin air. What sets this one apart is that it has a very shart political side. Much of the humor become very bitter sweet as we are faced with absust satire slashing at a police state.
Turning to a political sex farce, perhaps inspired by the John Perfumo sex scandal and most often performed together, Dirty Linen and Dirty Linen part II. Plus, an intervening play New Found Land. The comedy reads as rather broad. It seems to say that the Perfumo affair with a prostitute who also had a connection to a Russian spy (this was at the height of the cold war was itself a joke as that was how men, and some women comported themselves. This may play better live than on the page, but it read as stale, obvious and depending on female nudity as a tease and gag line for the audience and a proof of the weakens of everyone. We all have dirty linen.
As for New Found Land, it uses many of the same characters, a committee of Parliament attempting to deal with an application for citizenship made by an American. This play was a salute to one of Tom Stoppard’s friend, an American who did apply for and got British citizenship. And again, the fare is played out at the expense of British politicians.
The book winds up with Dog’s Hamlet, Cahoots Mc Beth. Here Stoppard is writing for a bare budget theater group, The Almost Free theater, and is intentionally experimental. The quest is: What happens when you are among a people who speak what sounds like English, but who define every word differently. I got the sense of the idea and tired of it. Very likely it is a more fun listen than it is to read.
Of this play I and to my surprise The Wife had a lot of fun. As is often the case for me I can miss things that are on the page only to find them much more entertaining on the stage. Hound is a smart farce on both the authors of reviews and Mouse Trap type manor house play.
Consider the reviewer, writing before the end of the Play in the play’s first act:
Already in the opening stages we note the classic
impact of the catalystic figure-the outsider-plunging through to the
center of an ordered world and setting up the disruptions-the shock
waves-which unless I am much mistaken, will strip these comfortable
people-these crustaceans in the rock pool of society-strip them of
their shells and leave them exposed as the trembling raw meat which, at
heart, is all of us. But there is more to it than that-
This Reviewer, Moon an have no idea about the play but has already begun to meet his word count with so much reviewer’s cliché. And while I think of it, how many scholarly papers contain this same muck?
Then comes the one person Greek Chorus, Ms Drudge, The house maid, of courseproviding important background and being the concenient silent witness to many arch threats:
MRS DRUDGE
Yes, many visitors have remarked on the topographical quirk in the local strata whereby there are no roads leading from the Manor, though there are ways of getting to it, weather allowing.
So bottom line of this play, lots of fun and satire all around.
Next up is After Margrette. Another farce, this time more aimed at the know-it-all solver of crimes who seeming invents plot and solutions out of thin air. What sets this one apart is that it has a very shart political side. Much of the humor become very bitter sweet as we are faced with absust satire slashing at a police state.
Turning to a political sex farce, perhaps inspired by the John Perfumo sex scandal and most often performed together, Dirty Linen and Dirty Linen part II. Plus, an intervening play New Found Land. The comedy reads as rather broad. It seems to say that the Perfumo affair with a prostitute who also had a connection to a Russian spy (this was at the height of the cold war was itself a joke as that was how men, and some women comported themselves. This may play better live than on the page, but it read as stale, obvious and depending on female nudity as a tease and gag line for the audience and a proof of the weakens of everyone. We all have dirty linen.
As for New Found Land, it uses many of the same characters, a committee of Parliament attempting to deal with an application for citizenship made by an American. This play was a salute to one of Tom Stoppard’s friend, an American who did apply for and got British citizenship. And again, the fare is played out at the expense of British politicians.
The book winds up with Dog’s Hamlet, Cahoots Mc Beth. Here Stoppard is writing for a bare budget theater group, The Almost Free theater, and is intentionally experimental. The quest is: What happens when you are among a people who speak what sounds like English, but who define every word differently. I got the sense of the idea and tired of it. Very likely it is a more fun listen than it is to read.
December 15, 2017
My immediate takeaway when I finished was that it may be too absurdist for me. But that doesn’t quite grasp the idea I was after. From my limited experience with Stoppard, he is always playing with words, playing with meaning, playing with intent, and has no problem (perhaps prefers) to have his characters speaking at cross purposes. What that does to a reader is leave them with a sense of whiplash and “what the heck just happened?” Or at least, that’s what happens when that reader is me.
The Real Inspector Hound is about theatre, critics, reality, and fate. Or it is just a play about two people sitting around waiting for something to happen, like that other one. This is early Stoppard, and I found his introduction to my edition most edifying about his process and what we received as a result. He had bits and pieces of dialogue between the characters who would become Moon and Birdfoot, but they had no purpose. He would come back to it over the years and eventually the device of the body on stage, and that body being Higgs catalyzed Stoppard into its completion. Which makes sense to me that we ramble about a bit and then land on an ending.
full review: https://faintingviolet.wordpress.com/...
#cannonbookclub
The Real Inspector Hound is about theatre, critics, reality, and fate. Or it is just a play about two people sitting around waiting for something to happen, like that other one. This is early Stoppard, and I found his introduction to my edition most edifying about his process and what we received as a result. He had bits and pieces of dialogue between the characters who would become Moon and Birdfoot, but they had no purpose. He would come back to it over the years and eventually the device of the body on stage, and that body being Higgs catalyzed Stoppard into its completion. Which makes sense to me that we ramble about a bit and then land on an ending.
full review: https://faintingviolet.wordpress.com/...
#cannonbookclub
March 26, 2019
"This is LSD type stuff." - Mrs Crook
December 31, 2019
I have found it as difficult to understand as I did twenty five years ago, but I like the development of the plot and how the characters move.
October 7, 2017
প্রথম নাটকটা অত্যন্ত ভালো, নাটকে যদি কারো অবিশ্বাস থাকে, তাহলে এই নাটক সেই লুপ্ত বিশ্বাসেরে কতকটা ফিরায়েও আনতে পারে। মঞ্চের এইপাশ ঐপাশ চতুর্পাশকে স্টপার্ড সাহেব মিশায়ে দিয়েছেন ঝানু দক্ষতার সাথে, আর এর সাথে যোগ হয়েছে তাঁর অদ্ভূত হাস্যরস। শেষ দৃশ্যে মেটা বিষয়টারে তিনি এমন এক জায়গায় ঠেলে দিছেন যে বিষয়টা মূলত কমিক না কি আরো অনেক গভীরে কিছু, সেই প্রশ্ন চলে আসে, প্রশ্ন আসে, কমিক কি নিজেই অনেক গভীরের কিছু না?
সেই তুলনায় দ্বিতীয় নাটক খুব জমে নাই, কিন্তু সহনীয়ের চেয়ে বেশি, কখনো কখনো প্রথমোক্তের মতই ভালো। তৃতীয় এবং চতুর্থ নাটক মোটের উপর ছাইপাশ, ছাইপাশ এবং বিরক্তিকর। শেষ দুই নাটকে অনেক বিষয় এসেছে, ভিটগেন্সটাইনের ভাষা ভাবনা কতখানি পাকা হাতের একটা নাটক জন্ম দিতে পারে, তা এই দুই নাটক না পড়লে বিশ্বাস করা কঠিন, কিন্তু এই নাটক দুইটা দক্ষতার সাথে লেখা হইলেও স্টপার্ড সাহেবের হাস্যরস অনুপস্থিত এদের বেলায়। গভীর হইছে, কিন্তু কমিক হারায়ে গেছে, অথচ কমিকের চেয়ে গভীর আর কী আছে?
হয়ত তেমন না, হয়ত হাস্যরস যথেষ্টই ছিলো, আমি ধরতে পারি নাই। আমি ত অনেক কিছুই ধরতে পারি না, মানুষের হৃদস্পন্দন ধরতে পারি না, নিজের গন্তব্য ঠাহর করতে পারি না, এইদিকে পড়াশুনা চুলায় যাচ্ছে, বইটই কিছুই পড়তে পারতেছি না আপাতত, এর মাঝে অনার্স শেষ করতে না পারার হুমকি, এর মাঝে আবার শেষ করতে পারাটাও ত একটা হুমকি, শেষ করলে এরপর আমি কী করবো?
আমি আর ভাবতে পারি না, মাথা ভার হয়ে আসে।
সেই তুলনায় দ্বিতীয় নাটক খুব জমে নাই, কিন্তু সহনীয়ের চেয়ে বেশি, কখনো কখনো প্রথমোক্তের মতই ভালো। তৃতীয় এবং চতুর্থ নাটক মোটের উপর ছাইপাশ, ছাইপাশ এবং বিরক্তিকর। শেষ দুই নাটকে অনেক বিষয় এসেছে, ভিটগেন্সটাইনের ভাষা ভাবনা কতখানি পাকা হাতের একটা নাটক জন্ম দিতে পারে, তা এই দুই নাটক না পড়লে বিশ্বাস করা কঠিন, কিন্তু এই নাটক দুইটা দক্ষতার সাথে লেখা হইলেও স্টপার্ড সাহেবের হাস্যরস অনুপস্থিত এদের বেলায়। গভীর হইছে, কিন্তু কমিক হারায়ে গেছে, অথচ কমিকের চেয়ে গভীর আর কী আছে?
হয়ত তেমন না, হয়ত হাস্যরস যথেষ্টই ছিলো, আমি ধরতে পারি নাই। আমি ত অনেক কিছুই ধরতে পারি না, মানুষের হৃদস্পন্দন ধরতে পারি না, নিজের গন্তব্য ঠাহর করতে পারি না, এইদিকে পড়াশুনা চুলায় যাচ্ছে, বইটই কিছুই পড়তে পারতেছি না আপাতত, এর মাঝে অনার্স শেষ করতে না পারার হুমকি, এর মাঝে আবার শেষ করতে পারাটাও ত একটা হুমকি, শেষ করলে এরপর আমি কী করবো?
আমি আর ভাবতে পারি না, মাথা ভার হয়ে আসে।
May 29, 2022
Dirty Linen was the standout play for me, a satirical farce that feels like it could have been written last year about Matt Hancock's gropey hands and Partygate:
"People don't care what MPs do in their spare time... why don't they have a Select Committee to report on what MPs have been up to in their WORKING hours - that's what people want to know."
Funny, but not funny.
After Magritte was delightful, although one that would work better visually and performed, rather than read, and is perhaps meaningless to those not familiar with his art.
And then unfortunately this volume ended with Dogg's Hamlet - bizarre, even with Stoppard's explanation of his exploration of Wittgenstein - and Cahoot's Macbeth - pointless, although rather sweet as a dedication to a friend.
Overall, a nice little collection but, for me , will never live up to the delicious mathematical complexity and wit of Stoppard's Arcadia.
"People don't care what MPs do in their spare time... why don't they have a Select Committee to report on what MPs have been up to in their WORKING hours - that's what people want to know."
Funny, but not funny.
After Magritte was delightful, although one that would work better visually and performed, rather than read, and is perhaps meaningless to those not familiar with his art.
And then unfortunately this volume ended with Dogg's Hamlet - bizarre, even with Stoppard's explanation of his exploration of Wittgenstein - and Cahoot's Macbeth - pointless, although rather sweet as a dedication to a friend.
Overall, a nice little collection but, for me , will never live up to the delicious mathematical complexity and wit of Stoppard's Arcadia.
July 22, 2013
The Real Inspector Hound is one of Stoppard's finest plays, and this volume has quite a few more gems in it. Hound is one of my favourites for it's blurring the lines between theatre and reality; we watch two critics watching a play who eventually get caught up in the action. It's a comment on the banality of critical reviews, especially for the kind of drama that initially appears to be going on on stage.
December 20, 2018
This collection of shorter works from the 1970s is among the better Tom Stoppard I've read. The title piece, a send-up of Christie-style whodunnits, is a seamless work of beauty which effectively blurs the line between performers, audience, and the critics who attempt to mediate between them. Both a poke at the formulaic structure of "classic" murder mysteries as well as a dig at theater critics, "The Real Inspector Hound" is non-stop laughs. Although the word "clever" is chronically over-used, the mesh between Stoppard's plot and dialogue earns it here.
Much the same praise extends to "After Magritte," which succeeds in exemplifying that artist's work. It toys with the dichotomy between appearance and reality, the subjective and the objective. Specifically, the capacity to view one's self objectively is called into question, as is the inevitability of viewing others subjectively.
"Dirty Linen," is paired with "New-Found-Land," and the two form an inseparable whole. Stoppard has managed to recycle the same setting for two very different stories, one taking place in the middle of the other. Thus, "Dirty Linen," a study of sexual mores as they relate to people (not just men) in positions of power is, effectively, split into two scenes. Between these appears "New-Found-Land," an hilarious concentrate of bad American stereotypes, somehow both accurate and ludicrously off-base at the same time.
The dog of the bunch here is "Dogg's Hamlet," which is a noble, but failed, experiment in the redefinition and understanding of language. Stoppard effectively demonstrates how language is an act of collusion, but his point is made in the introduction, and the playing out of the scenario quickly becomes tedious as long streams of seemingly unrelated words fly past at a rapid pace. Its companion piece, "Cahoot's Macbeth," is generally much more successful, painting a picture of the absurdity with which totalitarian regimes must live in constant terror of the power of words. Unfortunately, because it is tied in directly to "Dogg's Hamlet," it cannot be separated from that piece in any meaningful way. And by intertwining the two, the end of "Cahoot's Macbeth" comes off a bit muddled and perfunctory, like an engine suddenly running out of steam.
Despite the faults which "Dogg's Hamlet" introduces into this volume, based on its contents, it is clear that the overall quality of Stoppard's work during the 1970s was astonishing. Fans of his work should be well-pleased.
Much the same praise extends to "After Magritte," which succeeds in exemplifying that artist's work. It toys with the dichotomy between appearance and reality, the subjective and the objective. Specifically, the capacity to view one's self objectively is called into question, as is the inevitability of viewing others subjectively.
"Dirty Linen," is paired with "New-Found-Land," and the two form an inseparable whole. Stoppard has managed to recycle the same setting for two very different stories, one taking place in the middle of the other. Thus, "Dirty Linen," a study of sexual mores as they relate to people (not just men) in positions of power is, effectively, split into two scenes. Between these appears "New-Found-Land," an hilarious concentrate of bad American stereotypes, somehow both accurate and ludicrously off-base at the same time.
The dog of the bunch here is "Dogg's Hamlet," which is a noble, but failed, experiment in the redefinition and understanding of language. Stoppard effectively demonstrates how language is an act of collusion, but his point is made in the introduction, and the playing out of the scenario quickly becomes tedious as long streams of seemingly unrelated words fly past at a rapid pace. Its companion piece, "Cahoot's Macbeth," is generally much more successful, painting a picture of the absurdity with which totalitarian regimes must live in constant terror of the power of words. Unfortunately, because it is tied in directly to "Dogg's Hamlet," it cannot be separated from that piece in any meaningful way. And by intertwining the two, the end of "Cahoot's Macbeth" comes off a bit muddled and perfunctory, like an engine suddenly running out of steam.
Despite the faults which "Dogg's Hamlet" introduces into this volume, based on its contents, it is clear that the overall quality of Stoppard's work during the 1970s was astonishing. Fans of his work should be well-pleased.
August 5, 2024
“The Real Inspector Hound” was clever, like always, but a little overdone.
“After Magritte” didn’t work for me. Too much slapstick and not enough wordplay.
“Dirty Linen” was an intolerable bore until the appearance of MP French. Stoppard’s skills shine through in dialogue between a character who is a clear fool and one who is level-headed but turns out to be a fool. “Dirty Linen” is a straight circus. That said, with French in scene, this was fun.
“New-Found-Land” was weirdly patriotic, American-wise. Stylistically, it was probably the polar opposite of “After Magritte,” with huge chunks of monologue and no physical bits at all. All in all, not really a problem, but also not exactly a standalone play.
“Dogg’s Hamlet” hurt my brain. As it was meant to, I suppose, but I still couldn’t enjoy it.
In “Cahoot’s Macbeth,” I finally caught some of those classic witty one-liners for which I find Tom Stoppard’s writing utterly fascinating. Unfortunately, the frequent interjections really, really threw me off, in all directions.
“After Magritte” didn’t work for me. Too much slapstick and not enough wordplay.
“Dirty Linen” was an intolerable bore until the appearance of MP French. Stoppard’s skills shine through in dialogue between a character who is a clear fool and one who is level-headed but turns out to be a fool. “Dirty Linen” is a straight circus. That said, with French in scene, this was fun.
“New-Found-Land” was weirdly patriotic, American-wise. Stylistically, it was probably the polar opposite of “After Magritte,” with huge chunks of monologue and no physical bits at all. All in all, not really a problem, but also not exactly a standalone play.
“Dogg’s Hamlet” hurt my brain. As it was meant to, I suppose, but I still couldn’t enjoy it.
In “Cahoot’s Macbeth,” I finally caught some of those classic witty one-liners for which I find Tom Stoppard’s writing utterly fascinating. Unfortunately, the frequent interjections really, really threw me off, in all directions.
November 17, 2021
One of my fave playwrights is stoppard and these shorter plays felt like him back on fine form after a couple of disappointing ones the last time I read him. The Real Inspector Hound & Dirty Linen were particularly great.
August 4, 2019
This is actually the same book as Plays one, the first volume of the collected plays. It contains four, five or six plays, depending on how you divide them (New Found-Land is embedded in Dirty Linen, and Dogg's Hamlet and Cahoot's Macbeth are so interconnected that they could hardly be performed separately.) All are comedies with (intentionally) absurd plots. The Real Inspector Hound, like Rosencranz and Guildenstern Are Dead, collapses the distinction between the play and the observer. After Magritte recounts the aftermath of a visit to an exhibition of Magritte's art, and is filled with in-jokes about surrealist art; the plot is based on various perspectives on the same "event" which may not actually be an event at all. Dirty Linen is a farce about the sexual habits of members of Parliament (it would work as well, with a little re-writing, for Congress) and the sensationalism of the press (I get the impression that the line between the "respectable" press and the tabloids is more permeable in Britain than here). New Found-Land is embedded between the beginning and end of Dirty Linen, and is essentially a monologue of clichés about the United States. Dogg's Hamlet consists of a fifteen minute version of Hamlet performed ostensibly by a student group, which speaks a language that consists of English words used with different meanings than in English (based on one of the language "games" in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations); Cahoot's Macbeth is an homage to the Czech playwright Pavel Kahout, who performed an abridged version of Macbeth clandestinely during the period of "normalization" following the Prague Spring. It consists of a brief version of Shakespeare similar to the Hamlet of the first play, interrupted by the police and by one of the characters from that play, which then reinterprets the linguistic theme in terms of the resistance to totalitarianism. Stoppard is a playwright of ideas, and much of the fun in his comedies is in recognizing ideas and allusions under the absurdist disguise.
June 26, 2024
The early plays that prove more was going on beneath the surface than silly puns and women down to their undies. Each of the five or so plays have an urgency that wants to be understood, yet a cleverness that wags a finger in the audience's face warning them not to miss one non-sequitur (or in Dogg Cahoot's plays, an entire language).
June 26, 2024
The last two plays in this collection, sort-of adaptations of Shakespearean tragedies, represent the two poles of what works best in Stoppard’s plays: absurd intellectual wordplay and real-world menace that makes the wordplay necessary. Dogg may be in his element barking at his middleschool drama club, but it saves the day when Cahoot, like Arthur pleads in King John, is compell’d to fight the Inspector.
Despite the high praise for the final play that I and others on stage barely understood, re-reading these plays took a bit of shine off the illustrious Stoppard as Dirty Linen and New-Found-Land demonstrate how far he can go in opposite extremes of old boys leering at knickers worn by feisty yet flirty females or dullards getting so wrapped up in words that scene partners and other audience members are sent off to sleep. Nevertheless, the inventiveness of Inspector Hound’s reality-bending more than makes up for the twenty-first century ick felt when reading After Margitte.
June 26, 2024
The last two plays in this collection, sort-of adaptations of Shakespearean tragedies, represent the two poles of what works best in Stoppard’s plays: absurd intellectual wordplay and real-world menace that makes the wordplay necessary. Dogg may be in his element barking at his middleschool drama club, but it saves the day when Cahoot, like Arthur pleads in King John, is compell’d to fight the Inspector.
Despite the high praise for the final play that I and others on stage barely understood, re-reading these plays took a bit of shine off the illustrious Stoppard as Dirty Linen and New-Found-Land demonstrate how far he can go in opposite extremes of old boys leering at knickers worn by feisty yet flirty females or dullards getting so wrapped up in words that scene partners and other audience members are sent off to sleep. Nevertheless, the inventiveness of Inspector Hound’s reality-bending more than makes up for the twenty-first century ick felt when reading After Margitte.
February 25, 2014
Tom Stop-Hard's play on words is catching. Plays 1: The Real Inspector House was great. Good fun. An hilarious whodunnit. The companion play After Magritte was good fun as well. I enjoyed Dirty Linen / New-Found-Land, which are a good send up of Parliamentary sub-committees. All these so far read well on the page, and I imagine actors would have a great time in these plays.
The next two, Dogg's Hamlet and Cahoot's Macbeth are a companion piece. Dogg's Hamlet has to play first. I read half of this and I couldn't make any sense of it, so I didn't proceed to Cahoot's Macbeth. I think these two plays have to be seen to understand it. Probably very good though.
The next two, Dogg's Hamlet and Cahoot's Macbeth are a companion piece. Dogg's Hamlet has to play first. I read half of this and I couldn't make any sense of it, so I didn't proceed to Cahoot's Macbeth. I think these two plays have to be seen to understand it. Probably very good though.
June 29, 2009
The Real Inspector Hound ***oo
After Magritte **ooo
Dirty Linen **ooo
New-Found-Land *oooo
Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth *oooo
After Magritte **ooo
Dirty Linen **ooo
New-Found-Land *oooo
Dogg’s Hamlet, Cahoot’s Macbeth *oooo
May 14, 2024
What does it mean to be part of an audience? Is the audience an integral part of the play? What happens when the play starts repeating itself like a skipping record, but this time it's mutated and is starting to happen in your life? Is that not what all great art does, shows up many more places than the theater or picture frame than you originally saw it? "The Real Inspector Hound" plays at multiple tropes simultaneously, making fun of theater critics and murder mysteries in equal parts.
Stoppard carries within himself much of the same anxiety as the post-structuralists, but he dissipates it with the humor that they often lack. "The Real Inspector Hound" is ridiculous, but that's perfect, because the dilemmas it presents us with are likewise ridiculous. Similarly, I don't think most post-structuralists realize how ridiculous their panic really is; their concern seems to be manufactured, something that is only a dilemma to godless modernists who think that they must have scientific (or some other) certainty. But the thing is that most worldviews throughout history have operated off of faith, an acknowledgement that there are gaps between the things represented and the words we use to represent them (or a gap between us and the divine, etc.), but these aren't problems; they're precisely where the power of language comes from in the first place.
I was tempted to write "at least Stoppard comes up with original "gaps," but that's not really the case. The other plays I read, "Dogg's Hamlet" and "Cahoot's Macbeth," bring up a dilemma I remember first imagining as a child. What if you used all the words of a language, but their meanings were randomly shifted and displaced between each other? It's a game somewhere in the realm of pig latin and other cyphers, but it's unique in that it only confuses those who know the "original," un-scrambled version of the language. Dogg's Hamlet was well executed, slowly teaching the audience roughly what the characters are saying. The funniest part of the play was how relieving it was to hear "plain" English in the unaltered words of Hamlet that the characters practice, as a play within a play. Much like the first scene of Ionesco's "Rhinoceros," the first half of this play was painful to read, skipping between the character's name, the actions they're enacting, the gibberish they're speaking, and then the "translation;" the painfulness of this gives us some idea of how literally computers "think" (with no ambiguity, always 1:1 connections, variables, etc.), and it parodies the low-level comprehension of new learners of second languages (who normally just "translate" from one language to the other, associating the second language word with the first language word, rather than relating both equally to the concept itself).
Stoppard also evokes questions of whether we really "understand" Shakespeare, or if we just repeat his work by rote (much like many people recite creeds and other religious instruction by rote without comprehension). Stoppard continues this line of questioning to ask how much, and IF plays (and other artworks) can be "summarized" or shortened, and what is gained or lost by such abridgement. Additionally, this makes us ask questions about the worth of derivative works (which of course begs the question of whether there really is any "non-derivative" or truly original work). "Dogg's Hamlet" (and by extension, "Cahoot's Macbeth") thus only really remain comprehensible to scholars and nerds who know "Hamlet" and "Macbeth" well enough. This might not be that big of a problem, because if you're a big enough language nerd to be interested in Stoppard's wordplay and linguistic lines of questioning, then chances are you're familiar with both of the Shakespeare plays.
"Dogg's Hamlet" ends with a second, even more abridged version of "Hamlet," which moves the play into a territory adjacent to Kierkegaard's "Fear and Trembling," a book which repeats Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac over and over, in mutated forms. "Cahoot's Macbeth," by contrast, is a much less-effective play, one which only really gets interesting when cross-contaminated with characters from "Dogg's Hamlet." The most interesting part comes at the end when the "normal" English speakers and the "Dogg's" version start using each other's languages on accident, letting the dialects bleed over as if language is a contagious disease.
But isn't that really what it is? Just before writing this review, I was reading horror stories in a comment section about people who knew iPad kids who had to go to speech therapy or whose language was stunted or even in some cases totally overtaken by a different language. We underestimate how plastic our brains are, and Stoppard's plays poke at that in a much more playful way than that comment section did. The good news is that we're never really lost, we always have more time to learn and explore. Language really is a gift of the gods.
Stoppard carries within himself much of the same anxiety as the post-structuralists, but he dissipates it with the humor that they often lack. "The Real Inspector Hound" is ridiculous, but that's perfect, because the dilemmas it presents us with are likewise ridiculous. Similarly, I don't think most post-structuralists realize how ridiculous their panic really is; their concern seems to be manufactured, something that is only a dilemma to godless modernists who think that they must have scientific (or some other) certainty. But the thing is that most worldviews throughout history have operated off of faith, an acknowledgement that there are gaps between the things represented and the words we use to represent them (or a gap between us and the divine, etc.), but these aren't problems; they're precisely where the power of language comes from in the first place.
I was tempted to write "at least Stoppard comes up with original "gaps," but that's not really the case. The other plays I read, "Dogg's Hamlet" and "Cahoot's Macbeth," bring up a dilemma I remember first imagining as a child. What if you used all the words of a language, but their meanings were randomly shifted and displaced between each other? It's a game somewhere in the realm of pig latin and other cyphers, but it's unique in that it only confuses those who know the "original," un-scrambled version of the language. Dogg's Hamlet was well executed, slowly teaching the audience roughly what the characters are saying. The funniest part of the play was how relieving it was to hear "plain" English in the unaltered words of Hamlet that the characters practice, as a play within a play. Much like the first scene of Ionesco's "Rhinoceros," the first half of this play was painful to read, skipping between the character's name, the actions they're enacting, the gibberish they're speaking, and then the "translation;" the painfulness of this gives us some idea of how literally computers "think" (with no ambiguity, always 1:1 connections, variables, etc.), and it parodies the low-level comprehension of new learners of second languages (who normally just "translate" from one language to the other, associating the second language word with the first language word, rather than relating both equally to the concept itself).
Stoppard also evokes questions of whether we really "understand" Shakespeare, or if we just repeat his work by rote (much like many people recite creeds and other religious instruction by rote without comprehension). Stoppard continues this line of questioning to ask how much, and IF plays (and other artworks) can be "summarized" or shortened, and what is gained or lost by such abridgement. Additionally, this makes us ask questions about the worth of derivative works (which of course begs the question of whether there really is any "non-derivative" or truly original work). "Dogg's Hamlet" (and by extension, "Cahoot's Macbeth") thus only really remain comprehensible to scholars and nerds who know "Hamlet" and "Macbeth" well enough. This might not be that big of a problem, because if you're a big enough language nerd to be interested in Stoppard's wordplay and linguistic lines of questioning, then chances are you're familiar with both of the Shakespeare plays.
"Dogg's Hamlet" ends with a second, even more abridged version of "Hamlet," which moves the play into a territory adjacent to Kierkegaard's "Fear and Trembling," a book which repeats Abraham's near-sacrifice of Isaac over and over, in mutated forms. "Cahoot's Macbeth," by contrast, is a much less-effective play, one which only really gets interesting when cross-contaminated with characters from "Dogg's Hamlet." The most interesting part comes at the end when the "normal" English speakers and the "Dogg's" version start using each other's languages on accident, letting the dialects bleed over as if language is a contagious disease.
But isn't that really what it is? Just before writing this review, I was reading horror stories in a comment section about people who knew iPad kids who had to go to speech therapy or whose language was stunted or even in some cases totally overtaken by a different language. We underestimate how plastic our brains are, and Stoppard's plays poke at that in a much more playful way than that comment section did. The good news is that we're never really lost, we always have more time to learn and explore. Language really is a gift of the gods.
June 26, 2020
A bunch of absurd plays that explore language and meaning and the relationship between actor and audience. I didn't enjoy reading any of them but I often found myself thinking about how much skill it would take to perform the plays and how it might be fun to watch them. Each play is full of monologues that sound like complete nonsense without their context. Most of the time it was a headache to read. The Real Inspector Hound was first on the required reading list for my Postmodern Lit class and is part of the reason I dropped out. I may not be smart enough to "get it," but I also don't want to be the kind of heartless snob that thinks this kind of literature is enjoyable. Of the six plays in this collection, I would only consider re-reading After Magritte.
Cocklebury-Smythe: Your story smacks of desperation. Even so you have done us the honour of volunteering your account, so let me reciprocate. I was at various time at Crockford's, Claridges and the Golden Cock, Clock, the Old Clock in Golden Square, not to Coq d'Or.
Chamberlain: I was at the Crock of Gold, Selfridges and the Green Cockatoo.
McTeazle: I was at the Cockatoo, too, and the Charing Cross, the Open Door, the Golden Ox and the Cuckoo Clock.
Withenshaw: I was at the Cross Cook, the Fighting Cocks, the Green Door, the Crooked Grin and the Golden Carriages.
(What is happening is difficult to explain but probably quite easy to recognize: the four of them have instinctively joined in an obscuration, each for his own defence. By the time the Chairman speaks they have all begun to send French up.)
Cocklebury-Smythe: I forgot—I was at the Golden Carriages as well as Claridges, and the Odd Sock and the Cocked Hat.
Withenshaw: I didn't see you at the Cocked Hat—I went on to the Cox and Box.
McTeazle: I was at the Cox and Box, and the Cocks Door, the Old Chest, the Dorchester, the Chesty Cook and—er—Luigi's.
All: Luigi's?
McTeazle: At King's Cross.
Chamberlain: I was at King's Cross; in the Cross Keys and the Coal Hole, the Golden Goose, the Coloured Coat and the Côte d'Azur.
(from Dirty Linen, p. 113-114)
Charlie: (sings)Engage congratulate moreover state abysmal fairground.
Begat perambulate this aerodrome chocolate eclair found.
Maureen again dedum-de-da- ultimately cried the egg.
Dinosaurs rely indoors if satisfied egg. . .
(from Dogg's Hamlet, p. 151)
Easy: Blankets up middling if season stuck, after plug-holes kettle-drummed lightly A412 mildly Rickmansworth—clipped awful this water ice, zig-zaggled—splash quarterly trainers as Micky Mouse snuffle—cup—evidently knick-knacks quarantine only if bacteriologic waistcoats crumble pipe—sniffle then postbox but shazam!!!! Even platforms—dandy avuncular Donald Duck never-the-less minty magazines!
(from Cahoot's Macbeth, p. 203)
August 19, 2024
The Real Inspector Hound (1974) is one of Tom Stoppard’s early plays, a one act, but it is great fun, a play I saw performed a couple times in the seventies and eighties. It’s a farce, absurd, a parody, with commentary on theater criticism, theater, and particularly parlor theater and mysteries such as ones associated with Agatha Christie. The play Stoppard has in mind from Christie is The Mousetrap, one of those mid-winter closed door plays where we are invited to guess whodunnit, as we watch each of the suspects on the stage as a copper is called in to solve the case in Christie fashion, by getting everyone together and going through possible scenarios.
One aspect of the play is that it is framed by the presence of two theater critics assigned to the performance, Birdboot and Moon, who is back up for a guy named Higgs. Moon is jealous of Higgs and all anyone ever asks him is:
“Where’s Higgs?”
This speech by Moon is about that jealousy:
“Sometimes I dream of revolution, a bloody coup d’etat by the second rank—troupes of actors slaughtered by their understudies, magicians sawn in half by indefatigably smiling glamour girls, cricket teams wiped out by marauding bands of twelfth men—I dream of champions chopped down by rabbit-punching sparring partners. . .”
This speech reminds me of another Stoppard play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern is Dead, which is about two minor characters in Hamlet.
Birdboot is married to Myrtle, but he is also a womanizer that has dalliances with ingenue actresses whom he promises to give rave reviews:
“The fact is I genuinely believe her performance to be one of the summits in the range of contemporary theater.”
But Birdboot comes on stage and into the playas he becomes jealous of an actor whose character is in love with Felicity. At one point the phone on stage rings and he picks it up only to hear it is his wife yelling at him for having been out for drinks with the actor playing Felicity. Things turn increasingly absurd as we go, and in the process one actress proclaims:
“But that makes no sense! You're turning it into a complete farce!”
But we already knew that. The play from the first features a dead body right in the middle of the stage that is unseen by any character until late in the play. More bodies are also added. Oh, and we find out where Higgs was! Hilarious play.
I’m teaching a course in Fall 24 on detective fiction, and this play’s commentary on sometimes ludicrous theatrical and detective fiction conventions seems perfect. One convention in mysteries is that we never really know who anyone really is, so Stoppard has Magnus say:
“I have been leading a double life—at least!” And of course it is more than double.
I read the script and saw a production on YouTube, too.
One aspect of the play is that it is framed by the presence of two theater critics assigned to the performance, Birdboot and Moon, who is back up for a guy named Higgs. Moon is jealous of Higgs and all anyone ever asks him is:
“Where’s Higgs?”
This speech by Moon is about that jealousy:
“Sometimes I dream of revolution, a bloody coup d’etat by the second rank—troupes of actors slaughtered by their understudies, magicians sawn in half by indefatigably smiling glamour girls, cricket teams wiped out by marauding bands of twelfth men—I dream of champions chopped down by rabbit-punching sparring partners. . .”
This speech reminds me of another Stoppard play, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern is Dead, which is about two minor characters in Hamlet.
Birdboot is married to Myrtle, but he is also a womanizer that has dalliances with ingenue actresses whom he promises to give rave reviews:
“The fact is I genuinely believe her performance to be one of the summits in the range of contemporary theater.”
But Birdboot comes on stage and into the playas he becomes jealous of an actor whose character is in love with Felicity. At one point the phone on stage rings and he picks it up only to hear it is his wife yelling at him for having been out for drinks with the actor playing Felicity. Things turn increasingly absurd as we go, and in the process one actress proclaims:
“But that makes no sense! You're turning it into a complete farce!”
But we already knew that. The play from the first features a dead body right in the middle of the stage that is unseen by any character until late in the play. More bodies are also added. Oh, and we find out where Higgs was! Hilarious play.
I’m teaching a course in Fall 24 on detective fiction, and this play’s commentary on sometimes ludicrous theatrical and detective fiction conventions seems perfect. One convention in mysteries is that we never really know who anyone really is, so Stoppard has Magnus say:
“I have been leading a double life—at least!” And of course it is more than double.
I read the script and saw a production on YouTube, too.
November 9, 2022
This edition was originally called The Real Inspector Hound and Other Entertainments and this title probably captures it best. Stoppard is quite right that entertainment is a perfectly valid reason for theatre but, given his talents, this volume does feel like watching a brain surgeon juggling when s/he could be operating. To admire the juggling skill is slightly to miss the point. The Real Inspector Hound spoofs murder mystery and throws in art imitating life and "the fourth wall". Dirty Linen/New-Found-Land spoofs sex farce (and politics which is pretty much the same thing). But Dogg's Hamlet/Cahoot's Macbeth finally lights up in places (Soviet oppression of art and the individual seems to bring out the best in Stoppard) with reflections on the "political" status of plays with universal themes (so is choosing to perform The Scottish Play in Prague sedition?) The Wittgensteinian idea that language can be interpreted in two different non falsifiable ways is interesting in its own right (and has definite relevance to Soviet doublethink) but is rather hard going on the audience. (Perhaps it is easier if you see it?) The whole of Stoppard's career seems to be a Venn diagram of having something to say and having an elegant way to say it. Maybe only his earliest short plays manage neither. When he manages only the first (rarer) you get "Squaring the Circle". When he manages only the second you get "Travesties" or "The Real Inspector Hound" (which is still plenty to be grateful for). But when he hits both targets you get something as satisfying as "The Dog It Was That Died" or "The Real Thing" which shows why Stoppard thoroughly deserves his status as an important playwright despite his apparent "lack of seriousness".
May 9, 2023
I decided to read this because I knew I had loved all the other Stoppard I'd read, but I was surprised by how much I enjoyed these plays -- both for what they are in themselves, and for the ideas Stoppard is playing with and the way he was pushing the boundaries of what people expect out of theatre. Not all of them hold up terribly well, I think "Dirty Linen" in particular would be very hard to pull off now -- I saw what it was doing and why it *could be* hilarious, but
Other thoughts -- I would love to see "The Real Inspector Hound" staged, ideally by someone who really loves interwar country house mysteries and is ready to go all-in on those tropes -- I think part of why I found it so funny is that it worked on so many levels for me. And "Cahoot's Macbeth" was brilliant and both of its time and unfortunately still extremely relevant.
Eventually I will have read all the Stoppard there is to read, but thankfully not yet.
Other thoughts -- I would love to see "The Real Inspector Hound" staged, ideally by someone who really loves interwar country house mysteries and is ready to go all-in on those tropes -- I think part of why I found it so funny is that it worked on so many levels for me. And "Cahoot's Macbeth" was brilliant and both of its time and unfortunately still extremely relevant.
Eventually I will have read all the Stoppard there is to read, but thankfully not yet.
February 9, 2025
Okay, The Real Inspector Hound gets 5/5 from me, holy shit, I could talk about this play forever I thought it was SO cool and fun and brilliant. Totally stands up with R&G are Dead and Arcadia as a new Stoppard favorite. I honest to god have never seen it before and didn't know the basic conceit, and it's one of those plays that's so clever about setting up a construction and then blowing your mind with the deepening of that construction - the first part of the play is good and interesting and fun to read, but when shit starts breaking down, it becomes a whole other level.
Unfortunately, I don't think I'd give particularly high marks to anything else in this collection when it comes to reading it. I bet that After Magritte would be really funny and clever and innovative to watch performed, and I did like the reading of it okay, but it was hard for me to feel too connected. And then Dirty Linen is SUCH a slap-stick heavy performance that reading it on a page made it lose a lot of the charm for me. That goes double for Dogg's Hamlet which was obviously quite confusing to read and I think would have been confusing in a different, more fun way, to see it performed.
So yeah - definitely high marks for Hound, I see why it's a classic, and the others I bet would be a riot to watch performed; I'll have to try and see some more Stoppard actually performed on a stage, other than a college production of R&G I haven't seen any of it done live!
Unfortunately, I don't think I'd give particularly high marks to anything else in this collection when it comes to reading it. I bet that After Magritte would be really funny and clever and innovative to watch performed, and I did like the reading of it okay, but it was hard for me to feel too connected. And then Dirty Linen is SUCH a slap-stick heavy performance that reading it on a page made it lose a lot of the charm for me. That goes double for Dogg's Hamlet which was obviously quite confusing to read and I think would have been confusing in a different, more fun way, to see it performed.
So yeah - definitely high marks for Hound, I see why it's a classic, and the others I bet would be a riot to watch performed; I'll have to try and see some more Stoppard actually performed on a stage, other than a college production of R&G I haven't seen any of it done live!
Read
September 18, 2024Hard to rate this as a whole, particularly when it's part of a larger collection.
The Real Inspector Hound: 4-5
Definitely my favourite of the collection. Straightforward topoi that are placed so obviously, they seem fresh. Then twisted. Expected, yet completely unexpected, ending.
After Magritte: 3
Nothing like a bit of old 1970s racism to affect a modern enjoyment. Some very clever lines and good play on words.
Dirty Linen: 4
Was not expecting that. Feels like very small changes could quickly modernise this. Still feels very relevant.
New-Found Linen: 2
Does this count as a separate play? Really like the concept but reading the monologues was not so enjoyable.
Dogg's Hamlet: 3
5 stars for cleverness with language. 1 star for being a play where my brain would leave my body if I watched it live. So complex. Still not confident in what I read.
Cahoot's MacBeth: 4
A bit of this and a bit of that. Always enjoy a bit of authoritarian parody. Read this after Dogg's Hamlet.
The Real Inspector Hound: 4-5
Definitely my favourite of the collection. Straightforward topoi that are placed so obviously, they seem fresh. Then twisted. Expected, yet completely unexpected, ending.
After Magritte: 3
Nothing like a bit of old 1970s racism to affect a modern enjoyment. Some very clever lines and good play on words.
Dirty Linen: 4
Was not expecting that. Feels like very small changes could quickly modernise this. Still feels very relevant.
New-Found Linen: 2
Does this count as a separate play? Really like the concept but reading the monologues was not so enjoyable.
Dogg's Hamlet: 3
5 stars for cleverness with language. 1 star for being a play where my brain would leave my body if I watched it live. So complex. Still not confident in what I read.
Cahoot's MacBeth: 4
A bit of this and a bit of that. Always enjoy a bit of authoritarian parody. Read this after Dogg's Hamlet.
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December 9, 2023"Simon: I took the shortcut over the cliffs and followed one of the old smugglers' paths through the treacherous swamps that surround this strangely inaccessible house."
"The sound of a wheelchair approaching down several flights of stairs with landings in-between. It arrives bearing MAGNUS at about 15mph, knocking Simon over violently."
"Magnus: (shouting yet) How long have you been a pedestrian?
Simon: Ever since I could walk."
"Moon: (clears throat) Let me say at one that it has élan while at the same time avoiding éclat. Having said that, and I think it must be said, I am bound to ask--does this play know where it is going?"
"Hound: (snatching the phone): I'll phone the police!
Cynthia: But you are the police!
Hound: Thank god I'm here--the lines have been cut!"
"The sound of a wheelchair approaching down several flights of stairs with landings in-between. It arrives bearing MAGNUS at about 15mph, knocking Simon over violently."
"Magnus: (shouting yet) How long have you been a pedestrian?
Simon: Ever since I could walk."
"Moon: (clears throat) Let me say at one that it has élan while at the same time avoiding éclat. Having said that, and I think it must be said, I am bound to ask--does this play know where it is going?"
"Hound: (snatching the phone): I'll phone the police!
Cynthia: But you are the police!
Hound: Thank god I'm here--the lines have been cut!"
September 10, 2019
So begins a read and reread of second half twentieth century modern and postmodern drama. This volume of Stoppard's earlier plays is a mixed bag. The Real Inspector Hound held my interest although it is better to see the play performed rather than read the script. After Magritte was the exact opposite. These two plays are often performed as a double feature and in my experience After Magritte has been the second play performed at its detriment since audiences get their fill from The Real Inspector Hound and have become tired and cranky. I found After Magritte more suited to a critical read where I could spend some moments considering the allusions before continuing with the play. The other samplings weren't memorable from a present investigation.
January 29, 2025
Early work of the great playwright, highlighted by the delightful spoof of Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap," THE REAL INSPECTOR HOUND, which neatly satirizes the genre of the country-house thriller and the stuffy, self-important critics who pass judgment on plays (critics Moon--second-string and never able to forget it--and Birdboot are the leading characters, making predictions and declaiming their reviews well before the play is finished). Still as fresh and funny and honest as the day it was written. What a joy.
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January 7, 2024Lots of breaking the fourth wall and playing with what a play is. So basically, Stoppard at his Stoppardest. Actually, saying that reminds me of Magritte (ceci n'est pas une pipe), which is funny because one of the plays is "After Magritte".
Anyway, if you like Stoppard, you'll like Inspector Hound and maybe some of the others - you need to be in the mood for deconstructing the nature of stageplay ;). If you've never read Stoppard, then start with "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead".
Anyway, if you like Stoppard, you'll like Inspector Hound and maybe some of the others - you need to be in the mood for deconstructing the nature of stageplay ;). If you've never read Stoppard, then start with "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead".
January 16, 2018
Two theater critics are drawn into a play about a murder mystery and end up deeply embroiled in the action.
I am a Stoppard fan, yet found this play much less crisp and enjoyable as some of his others. The absurd portion of the play (ie critics being drawn into the action) was not super clear and therefore just absurd. At one point I was just scratching my head.
Can't recommend (sadly).
I am a Stoppard fan, yet found this play much less crisp and enjoyable as some of his others. The absurd portion of the play (ie critics being drawn into the action) was not super clear and therefore just absurd. At one point I was just scratching my head.
Can't recommend (sadly).
February 8, 2019
I enjoyed "The Real Inspector Hound" even though it was quite strange. It kind of reminded me of "The Play that Goes Wrong." The other plays were...how shall I say this?...prohibitively British. They felt like inside jokes on inside jokes on inside jokes with a side of fish and chips.
March 4, 2021
I've seen a performance of The Real Inspector Hound, and it was enjoyable. Perhaps I like the play better having seen it than I would otherwise. I'd give it a 3 1/2 stars. But the other plays didn't interest me at all.
October 31, 2021
the real inspector hound - ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ shockingly good
after magritte - ⭐⭐ ummmmmm no.
dirty laundry / newfoundland - ⭐⭐ boooooring
dogg’s hamlet / cahoot’s macbeth - ⭐⭐⭐ that joke got old fast. extra star for the shakespeare
after magritte - ⭐⭐ ummmmmm no.
dirty laundry / newfoundland - ⭐⭐ boooooring
dogg’s hamlet / cahoot’s macbeth - ⭐⭐⭐ that joke got old fast. extra star for the shakespeare
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