Jumpers vs. Rompers

Jumpers

Jumpers is a play by Tom Stoppard which was first performed in 1972. It explores and satirises the field of academic philosophy, likening it to a less-than skilful competitive gymnastics display. Jumpers raises questions such as “What do we know?” and “Where do values come from?” It is set in an alternative reality where some British astronauts have landed on the moon and “Radical Liberals” (read pragmatists and relativists) have taken over the British government (the play seems to suggest that pragmatists and relativists would be immoral: Archie says that murder is not wrong, merely “antisocial”). It was inspired by the notion that a manned moon landing would ruin the moon as a poetic trope and possibly lead to a collapse of moral values.