You can get by without this revival of The Real Thing

The Real Thing
Old Vic, London, until Oct 26

In the more prosperous 1980s when the tickets didn’t seem so expensive – and probably weren’t – Tom Stoppard’s play The Real Thing was the sort of clever, witty if ultimately frothy sort of play a generation of theatre-goers from all socio-economic backgrounds would think absolutely nothing of going to see and enjoy.

Max Webster’s revival boasts a fine central performance from James McArdle as a wonderfully ecocentric playwright negotiating his partner’s infidelities, rewriting appalling scripts and coming to terms with the sort of white middle class angst that now seems so eminently trivial given the problems our country and our society has since decided to throw our way.

It’s all played out on a swish set by Peter McKintosh that evokes the period with its use of primary colours and yuppie furnishings and I doubt very much if The Real Thing has ever been staged quite so elegantly and faithfully. Worthy, too, of mentions in dispatches are Rilwan Abiola Owokorian and Karise Yansen, on great form playing sources of the central character’s headaches.

The first night performance was accompanied by a soundtrack of polite and reverential titters from the audience – never a belly laugh, but more an endless succession of knowing “I see what you did there” sort of laughs – that made me think this was a good play of its time, but now I fear irredeemably dated.