Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (1977) Barbican Concert Hall / London Producer: Trevor Nunn Playwright: Tom Stoppard Cast: Ian McKellan (Alexander), John Wood (Ivanov), Andrew Shelton (Sasha), Patrick Stewart (Doctor), Philip Locke (Colonel), and Andre Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra Character: Doctor

Stoppard, in Every Good Boy Deserves Favor, contrasts the circumstances of a political prisoner and a mental patient in a Soviet insane asylum, to question the difference, if any, between free will and the freedom to conform. The situation, in which the mental patient 'hears' an orchestra, is both chilling and funny as we are introduced to two men who happen to share the same name, are incarcerated in the same cell, and are attended by the same doctor.