Tom Stoppard’s metaphysical Cold War spy thriller is not so much a “who done it?” as a “how did they do it?” Stoppard said he wanted it “to be light on its feet, an entertainment, with some science in it.” At its premiere in 1988 audiences found it too complicated and too confusing. Not surprisingly it hasn’t had a London revival since then.
The rewrite benefits from Howard Davies’s slick production. But despite persuasive performances by Lisa Dillon as Head of Military Intelligence, Tim McMullan as her boss and Alec Newman as a triple agent, it is still too complicated and confusing to be a success. Stoppard wrote a much better play about the Cold War for television, called Professional Foul.