ARCADIA at Little Theatre

Part detective story, part rom-com and part scientific fantasy, Tom Stoppards Arcadia frequently tops the list of greatest plays of the twentieth century.At the centre of this play about fate, mathematics, feminism, gardening, apples and the utter randomness of it all is the story of a group of people who simply can't get it together when it comes to things that are actually important.Its 1809 and thirteen year old Thomasina Coverly is a precocious mathematical genius, making sense of the world around her: her mother is obsessed with gardening, her tutor is having it off with the wife of a houseguest and the famous Lord Byron is skulking the corridors causing mischief. As battle lines are drawn across the school table, a demand for satisfaction has terrible consequences.Meanwhile in the present day, writer Hannah Jarvis navigates descendants of the Coverly clan, a jumped up academic and time itself to investigate Thomasinas discoveries, the mysterious events that happened 200 years ago and exactly who the shadowy figure of death is that haunts the garden at Sidley Park