Tom Stoppard is one of my favourite playwrights, so when the English Touring Theatre's production of The Real Thing was visiting Oxford, I was on my way, Euro Semi-final notwithstanding. This play written in 1982 is brilliantly typical Stoppard. He toned down what the programme called his "dazzling intellectual pyrotechnics" for a play about love, infedility and the business of writing. Stoppard obviously put a lot of himself into the main character. Henry, played beautifully by a bearded Gerald Kyd, is a succesful writer and whose latest plays seem to draw inspiration from his affair with Annie, an equally good Marianne Oldham. Henry is a romantic but when he leaves his wife and Annie moves in, their relationship changes, and this forms the backbone of the story.
However, it is Stoppard's clever way with words, repeating scenes with a twist and the incorporation of clips from plays, both real and fictional, that is completely mesmerising. Henry talks about writing quite a bit. I liked his comparison of good and bad writing to hitting a ball with a perfectly constructed cricket bat with just a piece of wood. But then Stoppard has huge affection for our summer game.
The production is first class. My only reservation was that I occasionally missed bits of the dialogue, more about the speed the actors spoke than diction. The direction by Kate Saxon was excellent and the stage management was the best I have seen for ages. The way the furniture moved around between scenes on the circular stage was fabulous. The inclusion between scenes of old pop songs also reflect Henry's (and Stoppard's) love of a catchy tune, not any particular artist. I went out singing quietly along to the Crystals' "Da Doo Ron Ron".
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