I didn’t breathe a word of my true reaction while filing into the top-floor bar of the Old Vic theatre last week after the three-hour production of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia was over. It would have been mortifying to be overheard muttering any adverse comments, when swaths of intellectual Stoppard-lovers from all over London and the Home Counties were crowding on to the staircase. Stoppard is a national treasure and to say anything rude about his work, especially in the three months after his death, would be heresy.  

It was only on the pavement walking towards Waterloo that I dared to say to my husband: ‘I must say, I wasn’t moved by it. I mean, I didn’t really care about any of the characters. I know we’re meant to be feeling dazzled by his wit and brilliance, but for some reason I just feel tired out.’  

A few minutes later, sitting on the Jubilee Line, my husband said to me, confidentially, among other comments: ‘The second half was too long.’ The woman on the other side of him overheard, and said, ‘I agree’. We struck up an instant bond. The couple opposite, clutching their theatre programme full of helpful explanations about Fermat’s Last Theorem and iterative algorithms, gave us a warm smile.  

Relief all round, till this small Arcadia-going sample dispersed at Westminster. Perhaps hundreds of home-goers were secretly feeling the........

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