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Arcadia

Review

Show goes long way to meeting challenge

A 10-year-old play is an apt choice for 10-year-old HumDrum AmDram - but a big, big challenge.

Tom Stoppard's comedy is set in both the early 19th century and the present, and debutant director Sam Sampson has cleverly devised a wordless prologue and epilogue to knit together the two periods.

But it is more difficult to deal with the pages of the scientific, artistic and philosophical debate in what is essentially a detective story. For those elements not to be come dry and tedious, panache and urgency are needed in abundance. They are delivered by some more than others. Natalie Caswell, who has made her mark in musical theatre with Portsmouth Players, proves she is also a skilled straight actress as the precocious Thomasina.

But last night she swallowed the opening question about carnal embrace, missing the important bullet-from-a-gun laugh.

The comic exchanges between Jonathan Fost as her tutor and James George as an aggrieved husband, played up for all they are worth, are a controlled riot.

The creative George, in particular, relishes every blustering, fawning, finger-fluttering moment

Mike Allen - Reproduced by permission - The News (4th February, 2003)