et in Arcadia ego

At last some proper theatre! After the mild disappointment of Hamlet and Godot, David Leveaux's staging of Tom Stoppard's Arcadia at the Duke of York's theatre is the best production I've seen on the London stage all year.

I'll have to admit a slight, ok an extreme bias, toward Tom Stoppard, who I think I prefer even to Shakespeare or to Beckett. A bit of provocation on this Thursday morning. He's one of those writers who, especially given that I hadn't seen or read any of his work until an impulse purchase of Rosencrantz last summer, I wonder how I ever managed to live without in my ignorance. Stoppard loves words, loves meaning, loves poetry, loves learning and wisdom - in a way that makes most scholars and poets look near numb by comparison.

This should in no way, however, diminish from the extraordinary effort of the team involved in the production of the staging: the cast is absolutely fantastic, a brilliant ensemble with nary a weak link in sight. Even the tortoise puts on a splendid show. The set is marvellously conceived and the transitions between the characters in the 19th century seamlessly converge with the modern-day story line.

This is a 'big ideas' comedy, taking on collisions between science and literature, classicism and romanticism, deterministic and unpredictable theories of the universe - but don't let that put you off, for all of these great debates are elegantly played out between character relationships across the past and present.You might also suppose that a play centred around such complex ideas as iterative algorithms might alienate the audience. You would be wrong, of course, as Stoppard's characters are so roguishly lovable that one cannot help but become emotionally entangled in their successes and failures. A play that engages on an emotional level and titillates intellectually is such a rare treat. If you see nothing else this year on the stage, see this play.

And so you don't think I'm only out for high culture, I'll also mention Sister Act the musical, which I went to see with friends last night. It's thoroughly entertaining, if a little less mentally stimulating than Arcadia. If you can believe it, by the end I was standing up, clapping, dancing and singing along with the rest of the theatre. It's very good fun and definitely worth a view.

the three englishmen wait for godot

Busy, busy bee am I.

Had a lovely weekend. Went to see Waiting for Godot at the Haymarket with friends on Friday (more on that in a moment) then went to see those same friends perform their own brand of comedy on Sunday. A bit of Tea Smith and scriptwriting in between and voila: le weekend parfait!

So. Godot. Like Hamlet last week, I have mixed feelings about this production. I first read Beckett's play my freshman year of University - taught to me by a professor I adored - it's one of my favourite pieces of theatre, let alone one of my favourite pieces of writing. I know of few other works open to such multitudinous interpretations as Godot; it truly is a work defined by the maxim, "make of it what you will". The difficulties we may have in defining precisely what Godot is all about (in a way, a pointless exercise, as the play's meaning must be constructed through each individual's meaning) is what makes the play such a marvel.

So Sean Mathias's production, while enormously entertaining in its own right, strips the elegiac beauty and philosophic discomfort from Beckett's text and replaces it with a sort of slapstick, light-hearted humour. I'm just not sure what the point of this production was. Why didn't Mathias get Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen to do proper farce a la Noises Off or even something like The Producers? You know when Hollywood makes a dreadful film out of an amazing book? That's sort of the way I felt about this production of Godot, only the amazing book provides fairly precise blueprints for a great film. What I don't understand is how Mathias managed to strip the profundity of Beckett's undertones of the sad state of humanity and replace it with a few happy little jigs. Maybe I just need to stop going to the theatre when a big name has the staring role. Though a week later, I'm still defending my criticism of the Donmar's Hamlet, which was essentially: Jude Law; pretty good, everyone else; pretty bad. So maybe it isn't the big stars who are the problem, but the directors who let them get away with indulgent and self-regarding performances...

I'm pleased to say self-indulgent direction wasn't the case at all with my mates, The Three Englishmen. They performed their hilarious and completely innovative torch lit play, The Lighthouse Keepers, which I've seen once before performed in the round. I can't fawn overly, otherwise I'll be accused of cronyism so I'll just say that it's a delightful piece of work, very funny and truly original - a rare thing these days. My only criticism is that the space in the Wilmington Arms doesn't really lend itself to torch lit and highly physical theatre. Next time, chaps, find a bigger space!

I'm off to see Tom Stoppard's Arcadia this evening and very much looking forward to it - Stoppard's a huge favourite of mine and I've never seen Arcadia performed before so much excitement all round.