Two types of digital entertainment have substituted for live theatre ­during the last lockdown. Shows streamed from empty theatres – such as Barnes’ People (Original Theatre) and The Great Gatsby (Wardrobe Theatre), highly praised here – alternated with archive ­productions filmed during pre-Covid live ­performances, the market leader of these being NT at Home (nationaltheatre.org.uk)

The only problem with the latter is that seeing shoulder-to-shoulder pre-2020 ­theatre-goers rapt at a long, complex, populous show – such as James Graham’s This House or Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus – makes me hungry for drama of a scale and immediacy that distanced (in all senses) shows cannot, however skilled, provide.

And what I most crave, it is slightly surprising to find, is the sort of production that previously always daunted me as a critic and viewer – a trilogy of big plays performed from morning to midnight on the same day.

Number one on this wish list startled me in another way. During the past 18 months, I have reread all of the plays of one dramatist, researching an essay in the book, Tom Stoppard in Context, which will be published in June.