Hugh Whitemore's 1986 play about Alan Turing, the man who broke the Enigma code during the second world war, invented the computer and committed suicide in the early 1950s after being convicted of gross indecency because of his relationship with a man, has worn well. Almost 20 years ago, it had a successful run in the West End, and it strikes me as exactly the kind of play the West End now lacks. It is intelligent (but not in a jumped-up Stoppardian way), multi-layered in its examination of loyalty and national expediency and full of understated passion. And any play that can make mathematics sexy definitely gets my vote.
Philip Wilson's clean production and fine period detail make the play seem startlingly contemporary. However, the innovative design, with its clever use of film, doesn't entirely overcome the problems of a revolve that can make the shifts of scene and time seem as if they are taking centuries.
It is a minor irritation in an evening that clearly highlights the fact that it was old ways of thinking that ensured success during the war, only for him to fall victim to the suffocating stuffiness and petty thinking of postwar Britain.
There are terrific performances all round, with Zoe Waites outstanding as Pat Green, the brilliant young mathematician with an unrequited passion for Turing, whose usefulness to her country ceased as soon as the war ended. But the evening gets its real energy from Philip Franks, who, as Turing, gives one of the most outstanding performances of the year. It is a superb piece of acting, powered by the searing passion and touching puzzlement of a brilliant man who knows too well that even when all scientific problems have been answered, the problems of life remain.
· Until November 29. Box office: 01604 624811.
