By Aline Mahrud

WORTH A LOOK?: ***

WHEN?: Friday 23 August, opens 3 September and runs through 26 October 2024 RUNTIME: 150 minutes (including a 20-minute interval) RUNTIME: 150 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)

The best thing about Max Webster’s (Minority Report, Lyric Theatre, Hammersmith) production of this revered comedy is the ridiculous performance of McArdle (pictured left, The Tragedy Of Macbeth, Almeida Theatre) who won our 2021 Best Theatre Actor monsta.

• Read on for reasons including how this is a rather functional re-run of a dated favourite

He plays ’40-ish’ playwright Henry in Tom Stoppard’s much-garlanded but dated 1982 play The Real Thing who begins the play married to Charlotte – given life by the always funny Susan Wokoma here (Teenage Dick, Donmar) – while having an affair with Annie, a rather flat Bel Powley.

Elsewhere Oliver Johnstone (All My Sons, Old Vic) feels rather miscast and out of his depth as ’40-ish’ Max who begins the play married to Annie and appears in the annoying Henry’s new play House Of Cards.

Stoppard’s The Real Thing has won numerous awards including 2 Tonys since its 1st bow and has included Felicity Kendal (Anything Goes, Barbican), Glenn Close (Sunset Boulevard, Coliseum) and Ewan McGregor (T2 Trainspotting) in its casts although for us it felt occasionally funny while horrifically self-indulgent as the author gazed no further than a variety of women’s navels.

It’s a play that reaches for something bigger with the introduction of a character imprisoned yet holding anarchist political views but can’t help but over-indulge itself in the more familiar world of a man self-obsessed by his own Desert Island Discs appearance and the songs he should play there to prove his own artistic heft rather than the music he enjoys.

Webster’s (As You Like It, Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre and Fanny And Alexander, Old Vic) best work has been away from this venue and we find ourselves close enough in our 2nd row seats to see the 7-inch contents of Henry’s record collection which include the Human League‘s Keep Feelin’ Fascination and Culture Club‘s Karma Chameleon.

McArdle’s Henry reminds of Andrew Scott’s self-obsessed and camp Essendine in Present Laughter at this very venue but Stoppard’s writing is not a patch on Coward’s rapier-sharp wit.

Old Vic artistic director Matthew Warchus steps down from that position in 2026 and this production very much feels like a lazy attempt to get bums on seats rather than to produce challenging original work such as the 1st play we saw under his stewardship almost 9 years to this day.

He may well be trying to leave the troubled venue in as stable a financial position before he goes but we’re tiring of the endless repeats of Jack Thorne’s admittedly brilliant adaptation of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol but have already seen it twice and feel to keep re-running it every Christmas is to deny a platform to more challenging work.

After all there were riots in Britain this summer and there’s already been an assassination attempt in an increasingly divisive US election campaign and it just feels like there’s a lot of material for theatre to be inspired by and offer insight for right now.

The Real Thing? This is a rather functional re-run of a dated favourite that may have done the trick in 1982 but doesn’t even come close now.

• Main pictures via Facebook courtesy Old Vic Tickets
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