{"id":749309,"date":"2026-02-07T22:21:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T22:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/749309\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T22:21:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T22:21:12","slug":"arcadia-the-old-vic-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/749309\/","title":{"rendered":"Arcadia \u2013 The Old Vic, London"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writer: Tom Stoppard<\/strong><\/p>\n

Director: Carrie Cracknell<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Go and see the new production of Tom Stoppard\u2019s Arcadia at The Old Vic for the sheer beauty of it. The theatre itself has been transformed so it all takes place in the round, and Alex Eales\u2019 set itself is a thing of elegance and beauty. There\u2019s a circular stage with a double revolve above which hang planet-like globes of light. It\u2019s somewhere between an astrolabe and an orrery brought to life \u2013 an apt visual image for the Enlightenment ideas touched on in the play.<\/p>\n

But the self-conscious intellectualism of the 33-year-old play itself now feels decidedly dated. And there\u2019s no way it can be modernised. Stoppard\u2019s twin time periods of the early nineteenth and late twentieth centuries are vital to the play\u2019s economy. Nor, it seems, can the text be usefully cut. You might wish to excise some of Stoppard\u2019s more tiresome whimsy \u2013 all that stuff about the tortoise and the hare, for example. But as all his references are embedded in other references, which are vital to the plot, it\u2019s probably impossible to do.<\/p>\n

Carrie Cracknell gives little hint of what it is that this new production is really exploring. The solemn glossary in the programme, which offers explanations of everything from classicism to chaos theory, suggests that she lacks confidence that the play\u2019s multitude of abstract concepts will work for a contemporary audience.<\/p>\n

In an attempt to get the cast to articulate Stoppard\u2019s quick-fire dialogue with clarity, they are made to enunciate clearly, so that the pace of the first half is far too stately. Stoppard\u2019s script is one joke after another, but there are few laughs in the early scenes. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Possibly, Cracknell has deliberately dialled down the more sexually predatory aspects of the play\u2019s young(ish) men. So louche academic, Bernard Nightingale, is played rather apologetically by Prasanna Puwanarajah. Plus, the whole scholarly thing now feels like something from a bygone age, with Nightingale pursuing some hare-brained idea about Byron and a supposed duel taking place in a grand house where the play takes place. Thomasina\u2019s tutor, Septimus Hodge (Seamus Dillane), is also supposed to be a loveable rogue, shamelessly seducing a house guest in various picturesque sites around the grounds. Here, he is made more twinkly than he appears on the page, particularly in the final scenes, where Stoppard\u2019s stage directions for a \u2018decorous distance\u2019 between him and Thomasina are ignored to allow a full-blown love scene.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The female characters come off rather better, in particular Isis Hainsworth\u2019s Thomasina, who transforms before our eyes from na\u00efve 13-year-old to poised young woman. Hannah Jarvis, played by Leila Farzad, is another poised, intensely watchable character. But most compelling of all is Fiona Button as Lady Croom. There\u2019s a touch of Lady Bracknell in her imperious moods, but so too she can be flirtatious and funny.<\/p>\n

Like all Stoppard plays, Arcadia is very, very wordy. This production works best when the pace speeds up, as it does in the second half, with actors able to fully embrace the play\u2019s farcical nature.<\/p>\n

Runs until 21 March 2026<\/strong><\/p>\n

\t\t\tThe Reviews Hub Star Rating<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Writer: Tom Stoppard Director: Carrie Cracknell \u00a0Go and see the new production of Tom Stoppard\u2019s Arcadia at The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":749310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[7757],"tags":[220976,165689,748,220977,393,220978,4884,220979,220980,257,220981,6080,220982,26251,2764,188819,16,15],"class_list":["post-749309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-london","tag-alex-eales","tag-arcadia","tag-britain","tag-carrie-cracknell","tag-england","tag-fiona-button","tag-great-britain","tag-isis-hainsworth","tag-leilah-farzad","tag-london","tag-prasanna-puwanarajah","tag-review","tag-seamus-dillane","tag-the-old-vic","tag-theatre","tag-tom-stoppard","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116031683715082326","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=749309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/749310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=749309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=749309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=749309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}