Theatre review: Arcadia

Scheduled at the Old Vic before his death but ending up serving as a tribute, Arcadia is probably Tom Stoppard's best-loved play - for me it's certainly the one that's most effective in its use of esoteric knowledge, as the way it muses on science and poetry makes the audience feel clever, as opposed to some of his works that make us feel sneered at. In a country house in 1809, precocious 13-year-old Thomasina (Isis Hainsworth) is being taught maths and classics by her tutor. Septimus (Seamus Dillane) is flirtatious with her mother Lady Croom (Fiona Button,) but is even more indiscreet elsewhere, getting caught in various locations and positions with the wife of Ezra Chater (Matthew Steer.) The house guest and notoriously bad poet issues various challenges to duels, but Septimus always seems able to convince Ezra he was doing him a favour by cuckolding him.

Theatre review: The Invention of Love

Crazy to think Tom Stoppard has spent an entire career writing plays about human beings, despite all the evidence suggesting he's never met one. In fact despite having enjoyed some of his work it may be time to add him to my very short list of creatives I've given enough chances to for one lifetime, as The Invention of Love is based around a premise that should be effortlessly moving, but ends up far too interested in deconstructing Catullus to get round to deconstructing emotions: Simon Russell Beale plays A E Housman, the Victorian poet and classicist who, by the time of his death, seems to have decided that the two pursuits don't really go together, as one requires rules, facts and logic to be set aside in favour of emotional truth, while the other involves picking apart every comma in the name of strict accuracy.