Peter Shaffer interview

When the National Theatre announced plans to revive a play (The Royal Hunt For The Sun) by Peter Shaffer this year some people might have wondered if the great playwright was still alive. He is. It's 21 years since he last had a play open at the National, but as Robert Butler finds out in The Daily Telegraph, at the age of 79 Shaffer, the author of plays including Amadeus and Equus, is still writing.

Shaffer still works on a manual typewriter and possesses only a single copy of each of the two plays in progress. He tries to write every day to keep his dramatist skills in good nick.

"Things rust, you know, like the heart. My cardiologist said, 'It's a pump, use it, that's the sole advice I've got to give you.' It's the same in playwriting. Don't theorise about it. Do it."