Isis Hainsworth as 13-year-old maths prodigy Thomasina Coverly in Arcadia [Manuel Harlan]

TOM Stoppard’s Arcadia – a work that moves across two time periods and explores garden history, determinism and chaos theory, classicism and gothic romanticism – premiered at the National Theatre in 1993.

More than 30 years later, it has lost none of its resonance. Stoppard deftly weaves together big ideas and personal passions, revealing how historical research can never fully account for the emotional lives of individuals who help shape the past.

The play is set in a stately home in Derbyshire, the fictional Sidley Park. In 1809, 13-year-old Thomasina (Isis Hainsworth, excellent), a mathematical prodigy with an enquiring mind, delights and disarms her tutor Septimus Hodge (Seamus Dillane), whose friend happens to be Lord Byron.

We learn that Septimus has been caught in a “carnal embrace” with house guest Mrs Chater. Her husband, the mediocre poet Ezra Chater (Matthew Steer), challenges him to a duel, but Septimus refuses to indulge him.

The parallel narrative takes place in the early 1990s. Author Hannah Jarvis (Leila Farzad) and pompous academic Bernard Nightingale (Prasanna Puwanarajah) are at Sidley Park researching different mysteries.

Hannah is interested in a hermit who once lived on the grounds; Bernard is convinced that Lord Byron killed a minor poet in a duel while visiting the house.

Their competing theories, and Bernard’s narcissism, provide much of the comedy, while descriptions of the garden’s successive redesigns give a vivid sense of changing tastes.

Arcadia is exquisitely written, if a touch overlong, and brilliantly acted. Carrie Cracknell stages it beautifully in-the-round on Alex Eales’ evocative revolving stage, its geometrically patterned floor and floating orbs of light suggesting model planets. Suzanne Cave’s costumes are wonderfully detailed.

An elegant revival.

Until March 21
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