Theatre review: Rock'n'Roll

Tom Stoppard time, so lots of people overheard in the interval carefully avoiding giving an opinion in case they're exposed as not understanding it. Rock'n'Roll pits Communist idealism against Cold War reality via two Cambridge academics, whose lives it follows from 1968 to 1989. Max (Nathaniel Parker) is a lecturer and vocal Communist who thinks he's found an enthusiastic protégé in Czech graduate student Jan (Jacob Fortune-Lloyd.) When Russia invades Czechoslovakia to curb its apparent intentions for reform, Jan returns to Prague in the vague impression that he can do something to help, but the authorities - who sent him to England to spy on Max in the first place, and see if he can be turned to an asset - are unimpressed. But Czechoslovakia is still seen as a comparatively open, accessible part of the Eastern Bloc, and the fact that it allows foreign bands to play is a plus to the music-obsessed Jan.

When his dissident friend Ferdinand (Hasan Dixon) introduces him to a local rock and/or roll band, Jan gets increasingly involved in their political profile until, over the years, he goes from pet academic and journalist to official enemy of the state.

But for all that his friend is experiencing the harsh realities of life in a Communist country, Max refuses to question his own principles. Nina Raine's production, which plays out in traverse on Anna Reid's wide open set, has a number of strong performances to add to the two conflicting leads: Nancy Carroll feels all too quickly dispensed with as Max's dying wife Eleanor (who doesn't seem to have ever held a seminar that didn't end with the student running off crying,) but she later gets more to play with, and some subtler emotions, when she doubles as her daughter Esme, the designated fool in a family of geniuses.

There's good work from Phoebe Horn as the younger Esme and, in turn, her own daughter Alice, while Colin Tierney has a nicely understated menace to his Czech interrogator. I came away knowing a bit more about Czechoslovakia during the Cold War but whether I was actually entertained, or emotionally engaged is a different story. Stoppard of course has a reputation as a coldly intellectual writer, and Rock'n'Roll does little to dispel that, with a number of scenes that border too closely on actual lectures or philosophical arguments.

There's also a kind of flatness to Raine's production that means even the attempts at something more lyrical don't pick up much steam: There's recurring themes around Sappho, and fired Pink Floyd singer (and local Cambridge celebrity) Syd Barrett (Brenock O'Connor) wandering around in the background like the god Pan, but these end up being two more of the many disparate threads in the story. The ending is filled with an almost uncharacteristic, giddy optimism that I think is meant to be hope winning out over the various philosophies swirling around the play. But as I never felt as if those philosophies had really engaged with each other over the previous three hours, the final note feels almost arbitrary.

Rock'n'Roll by Tom Stoppard is booking until the 27th of January at Hampstead Theatre.

Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes including interval.

Photo credit: Manuel Harlan.