Arcadia

by Tom Stoppard

seen at the Duke of York's Theatre on 27 August 2026

Carrie Cracknell directs Nikki Amuka-Bird as Hannah Jarvis, Oliver Chris as Bernard Nightingale, Seamus Dillane as Septimus Hodge and Isis Hainsworth as Thomasina Coverly with a supporting cast of eight in a revival of Tom Stoppard's dazzling 1993 play Arcadia, in which Hannah and Bernard, two English literature academics, are trying to reconstruct events at the Coverly estate which occurred in around 1810, in particular to determine whether Lord Byron visited and was subsequently impelled to leave the country. The audience is privileged to see, or to piece together more accurately, what in fact occurred (though Lord Byron does not appear on stage) and to witness the burgeoning mathematical talent of the soon to be 17-year-old Thomasina as she bounces ideas off her tutor Septimus.

In this production the action takes place on a circular stage which has two revolving platforms, designed by Alex Eales. The nineteenth and twentieth century scenes are intertwined allowing full play for Stoppard's characteristic cleverness at creating thematic connections which the audience may well appreciate more than the characters can. For example, Valentine Coverly (Angus Cooper), a modern scion of the Coverly family completely au fait with contemporary number theory and chaos theory, explains to Hannah why Thomasina cannot possibly have developed similar theories so long ago, even though we have just witnessed her doing so. He has all the cocky self-assurance of the modern scientist who implicitly patronises the efforts of earlier generations. Even as we ourselves can feel superior to him through what we have seen, we benefit from his explanation of these difficult theories, and Stoppard has brilliantly found a way to inform us without having Thomasina say anything anachronistically.

The play is shot through with this kind of intellectual sparkle, while also containing running jokes about English literature (and literary figures). All the while, the clandestine love affairs taking place on the Coverly estate are juxtaposed with scenes showing the ease with which they can be misconstrued by modern researchers from the meagre evidence left behind. With the enticing prospect of explaining Lord Byron's activities there is far too much danger that the "evidence" will be bent to the researcher's goal - and this can be exploded by one insignificant detail brought to light by a minor character in a most satisfying comeuppance. The affairs in the modern world, on the other hand, leave a more sour taste as Bernard is revealed to be shallow and self-centred as well as intellectually rash. Septimus Hodge back in the nineteenth century, though unscrupulous in his own way with the unfortunate (and unseen) Mrs Chater, is poignantly redeemed by his courteous refusal to take advantage of the young Thomasina at a critical juncture.

Even though the Duke of York's is a conventional West End theatre, in this production some seats were provided for the audience at the back and the sides of the stage; we occupied seats at the back and had a chance to see the auditorium's "wedding cake" decoration from the usual point of view of the actors. With the revolving platforms, and adroit direction, this somewhat artificial theatre-in-the-round approach worked well and we were not at a disadvantage. It was a pleasure to see another Stoppard revival, particularly as Arcadia is one of his greatest plays.

1536

by Ava Pickett

seen at the Almeida Theatre on 4 June 2025

With characters named Anna and Jane, and with the year of Ann Boleyn's downfall and execution as its title, one might have expected Ava Pickett's play 1536 (here expertly directed by Lyndsey Turner) to be yet another work appealing to our apparently inexhaustible fascination with Tudor history. But Anna (Siena Kelly) and Jane (Liv Hill) and their friend Mariella (Tanya Reynolds) are young women in a village in Essex, a place which considers Colchester, let alone London, to be too far away to provide anything except distant and late-arriving news. What they hear about the disgraced queen profoundly disturbs them, but they are at the same time aware that more may well have happened in the time it has taken for the news to reach them; that what sounds like an impossible rift in the right way of the world may well have already been resolved.

In the meantime Anna pursues her wanton ways, for the most part blithely unaware that her reputation is being tarnished, while Jane prepares to follow her father's bidding into an arranged marriage with Richard (Adam Hugill) - the man currently infatuated with Anna. Mariella, slowly assuaging her own heartbreak over William (Angus Cooper) who has also married for social advantage in the village, is apprenticed to the midwife and hopes her work will see her through, even though she does not like it.

The menfolk are occasional presences in what is a tense but cunningly localised drama of conflicting desires and social oppression. Anna appears to be in control of her life, and she often treats the bland and none-too-bright Jane with amused contempt even though they are supposed to be firm friends. Jane herself, seeking utterly naive at first, shows an unpleasantly ruthless streak under pressure, as the mild-mannered so often do. Mariella is less amenable to this treatment and more aware of the danger Anna is courting; their personalities and attitudes make for a powerful microcosm of late medieval society as it impinged on womenfolk, while the news of the catastrophe enveloping Queen Ann acts as a counterpoint to the development of these women's "small" and (of course) undocumented lives.

The action takes place in the fields outside the village. The set, designed by Max Jones, is a field of wild grasses, very suitable for the illicit assignations Anna so enjoys, and for conducting female gossip away from the unwelcome attentions of fathers and husbands (until the men come looking for the women). Since the Almeida has no proscenium, the set is visible from the moment one enters the auditorium, and it is framed at the front by a huge rectangle of thin neon light, almost like the border of a giant cinema screen. The wildness of the Essex countryside immediately destroys any expectation that this is going to be a play about court life, and the modern earthiness of the language only reinforces the point that we are dealing with articulate but essentially unlettered folk. But, as news percolates that the queen has been executed, local events put the three friends in danger: their prospects for surviving in a relentlessly patriarchal world are completely uncertain. The resonances with the modern world are all too clear: who will be believed? Is it safer to strike out or to bow to one's fate?