Symposiums (or symposia, as the Pedants’ Pedant, Henry, would no doubt instantly inform me from beneath his half-hearted mullet) are the places to explore ideas about writing. Stages should be reserved for characters we believe in, in whom we can i...
Critics' Reviews
Review: THE REAL THING, The Old Vic
The Real Thing review – Tom Stoppard’s gem still shines
Artfully directed by Max Webster, with wonderful long-shadowed lighting by Richard Howell and a poppy soundtrack, the drama’s artifice is playfully exposed, maybe even sent up, with dancing stagehands bringing choreographed comedy and a light meta ...
What a pleasure to have Tom Stoppard’s brilliantly inventive 1982 Tony-winning play The Real Thing back in London. Even better, both its formal daring and its frank, subversive portrait of complicated relationships are thoughtfully handled in Max W...
The Real Thing review — hang in there, Tom Stoppard’s greatest play is worth it
The longer it goes on, the more this production finds a plangent tone where the witty, the wise and the wounded are forever colliding. “No, it was about self-knowledge through pain,” the humbled Henry chides when his equally outspoken daughter ac...
The Real Thing – The Old Vic | Review
The Real Thing is a palimpsest of a play that is so rich that I wanted to go straight back to the text and savour the language on the page as well as the stage. The riches are too many and complex to be garnered in one viewing, enjoyable as that was ...
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