The Real Thing, Old Vic review - Stoppard classic keeps on giving

When it was first produced in 1982, The Real Thing was a turning point for Tom Stoppard, the play that added to the existing perception of him as an immensely witty, intelligent, very theatrical crafter of dazzling conceits, albeit perhaps a little cold, as someone who could also touch people’s emotions: clever, still, but cutting to the heart. 

The difference was simple, really: Stoppard had always been driven by the desire to explore ideas; this time his idea was love. 

The Real Thing is a consideration of what it means to be in love – the exhilaration of it, the pain, the unspoken contracts involved, the trust, the honesty, fidelity, commitment. Its main character, the playwright Henry, is a man who can talk a good romance, but inconveniently can’t write one; and because he talks so much, but shows so little, his lovers don’t really believe he can feel it. Henry’s a true romantic, but no-one believes him.

Henry’s conundrum can be a problem for the play itself. Hampered by an overly haughty Toby Stephens, The Old Vic’s last production, in 2012, left the audience itself feeling decidedly unmoved. But this one, nimbly directed by Max Webster and with a simply fantastic James McArdle as Henry, is a different animal. This is Stoppard with both brains and heart, its jokes showered like confetti.

Of course, the set up is far from straightforward, both thematically and structurally. Stoppard also dwells on one of his favourite themes, the notion of political commitment, and on the act of writing – conjoining the two in the question of whether a piece of work can have validity for its passion and message alone, however vulgarly expressed, or whether words, artful writing, really do matter. He also throws in different plays within the play, with a little Jacobean tragedy for good measure. Ones wits are required from the get go. In short, Henry is married to Charlotte, an actress (Susan Wokoma, pictured above with McArdle), but is having an affair with Annie, also an actress, who is married to Max, Charlotte’s current co-star, the pair of them acting in one of Henry’s plays, House of Cards, which is conveniently about a suspected infidelity. Henry and Annie are seriously in love, though, and their relationship becomes the principal battleground of the play. 

Meanwhile, Annie is campaigning on behalf of a Scottish soldier, Brodie, who has been jailed for setting fire to a wreath at the Cenotaph. Henry doesn’t share her commitment to the man, or to Brodie's desire to write a TV play about his misfortunes. 

Designer Peter McKintosh has devised an elegant, minimalist space, blue panelled to the rear, beautifully lit and with very few props, the key ones being a sofa, a writing desk and typewriter, and a record player – the team refreshingly making no effort to update the material beyond the analogue. 

The record player is primarily for Henry and his lovers to DJ their arguments. Music was also integral to another recent Stoppard revival, Rock ‘n’ Roll at The Hampstead Theatre, and famously means a lot to the playwright. Here, it lends colour and mirth rather than meaning, though Henry’s obsession to pop music – and his wonderfully useless inability to conjure eight choices for his appearance on Desert Island Discs – does hint at the cutie lying behind the snobbish intellectual.

The other major prop is the sofa, as the play shifts between the different couples, each lover revealing a nuanced, personal view of what love means to them, what marriage entails, how they are, or are not affected by jealousy and insecurity. For Wokomo’s Charlotte, a bright battler who is far more than simply the discarded wife, “There are no commitments, only bargains.” This one statement alone could merit a whole act to itself. 

Wokoma and Oliver Johnstone as Max (pictured left, with Wokomo) are the entertaining warm-up act, navigating the play’s tricksy opening section, before McArdle and Bel Powley as Annie take up the baton. In truth, the central pairing doesn’t entirely work for me, certainly in the early scenes. While the actors are close in age, Powley’s Annie seems far too young, too skittish for McArdle’s Henry; their relationship simply doesn't feel likely. That said, Powley jousts well with her co-star and, as the second half moves the action on two and a half years, introduces a gravitas to her character that levels the field.

Ultimately, the evening depends on the magnetic McArdle. The Scot has proven his versatility so many times over, from Angels in America, to the Young Chekhov season at the National, to The Tragedy of Macbeth opposite Saoirse Ronan at The Almeida. Here, adopting the RP accent that might more naturally accompany many Stoppardian actors before him, he’s funny, sly, entertainingly superior and endearingly sweet, and literally nimble on his feet, gliding along the stage with his typewriter in hand, or dazzling with a dance routine to ENO’s ‘Mr Blue Sky’. 

Whether brilliantly delivering Stoppard’s great analogy between writing and cricket, or bringing tears to eyes with Henry’s heartfelt testament to true love, McArdle is this production’s secret weapon, its real thing.  

• The Real Thing at The Old Vic until 26 October
• More theatre reviews at the artsdesk