Tom Stoppard’s 1993 play centres on Thomasina, a teenage genius of the Napoleonic age, whose precocious understanding of thermodynamics is thwarted only by the lack of sufficient time and paper to do the maths. Yet as she explains to her tutor, the proof is in the pudding: a spiral of jam turns a rice dessert red, “yet by turning in the opposite direction it cannot be unstirred”.
The great achievement of Arcadia is Stoppard’s unfailing ability to cut complex theories down to size using the sharpness the characters’ intellect. The cost, in terms of linguistic and tonal variety, is that everyone speaks in epigrams. It is as if they can’t help it; even the observation of the drama’s chiefest dullard that a tutor’s duty is to keep their student in ignorance earns a reprimand from his sister: “Do not dabble in paradox, Edward, it puts you in danger of fortuitous wit.”
The pleasures of Giles Croft’s revival are principally cerebral (though mention must be made of the radiant aurora of Mark Jonathan’s pre-dawn lighting design). The transitions between the play’s twin timeframes are seamlessly handled, as the Regency characters conspire to make fools of the credulous academics pursuing them 200 years later. David Bark-Jones’s overweening performance confirms everything that makes people suspicious of modern media dons (and maybe a little bit of Tom Stoppard), being undeniably brilliant but completely without concept of when to cease demonstrating the fact.
Lizzy McInnerny’s tart Lady Croom is an ascorbic joy who should satisfy any Downton fans that have wandered in by accident; and Emily Lang makes a notable debut as the precocious Thomasina. It’s a formidable play, consummately revived, but though the intellect is ceaselessly tickled, the heart, like Thomasina’s pudding, remains curiously unstirred.
• Until 15 November. Box office: 0115 941 9419. Venue: Nottingham Playhouse
