Time Travelling Comedy ARCADIA is Coming to The Questors Theatre in June

This summer in the lead up to a camp take of On The Razzle 15-22 July 2023, Director Simon Rudkin (Ghost Train) will take us on an immersive journey from the Regency period back to the present in his elegant adaption of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia at The Questors Theatre in Ealing 03 - 10 June. "the greatest play of our age" - The Independent. This elegant play by Stoppard was first performed at The Royal National Theatre in 1993, New York City's Lincoln Centre of Performing Arts and then... Across the world. Arcadia is Tom Stoppard's "richest, most ravishing comedy" (New York Times).

Taking place in both past and present, the themes of Romanticism, Chaos, The Enlightenment and Gardening are woven together in search of an elusive truth. Two contemporary scholars set about a grand Derbyshire country estate and uncover mysterious past events. What really happened to Thomasina Coverly, a gifted student, 180 years ago at Sidley Park in 1809? Thomasina proposes an extraordinary theory. Around her, the adults, including her tutor Septimus, are preoccupied with forbidden desires, illicit passions and burning rivalries.Two hundred years later, academic adversaries Hannah and Bernard are piecing together mystifying clues, recalling those events of 1809.

Alex Marker highlights a connection between Tom Stoppard and The Questors Theatre:

"The Questors Theatre has long held a reputation as a theatre which champions new writing, including a young Tom Stoppard at the beginning of his career when we presented an early version of his hit play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. It's a delight to return to his work and stage what has been described by critics as one of his finest plays. Set in two different time periods, this play deftly blends comedy, tragedy, chaos theory and landscape gardening into a beguiling cocktail which investigates how clues left by the past are interpreted by the present..."

More on the Ealing - Arcadia connection:

Thomasina Coverly is loosely based on Lord Byron's daughter Ada Byron, later the Countess of Lovelace. At 17 she had developed a mathematical ability, which led to her work with Charles Babbage on his proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Difference Engine. Ada was the first to recognise that the machine had applications beyond pure calculation, and subsequently published the first algorithm to be carried out by such a machine. As a result, she is often regarded as the first computer programmer. She spent part of her early years living at Fordhook House in Ealing Common, where she married William, Baron King (who later became the Earl of Lovelace) in 1835. A school named after Ada Lovelace opened in Ealing in 2018.

Arcadia will open at the Questors Judi Dench Playhouse Saturday 03 June for a strictly limited run of seven performances.

Book Tickets The Questors website: Arcadia (Click Here)

Box Office: 020 8567 5184 (open between 11 - 13.00 Mon - Fri & 18.30 - 20.30 Tues - Fri)

Prices: Standard tickets: £14 (opening night £8). Members: £7. Member guest: £10. Under £16/full-time student: £7. Concession: £12. Final 2 shows: £18