ANSWERING LIFE'S BIG QUESTIONS...

Tom Stoppard’s 1993 masterpiece is earthily hilarious and dazzlingly profound.

- With STEFAN KYRIAZIS

It’s also cosmically brain-frying with talk of iterated algorithms and chaos theory.Sparcely staged on a revolve under an ellipsis studded with hanging globes like atoms or stars, it's a play of two halves in every sense. Set concurrently in the same palatial country home in 1809 and the 1980s, the period scenes are a blast while the modern chunks feel rather laboured.

It opens in a witty whirl with precocious heiress Thomasina and her tutor Septimus (Isis Hainsworth and Seamus Dillane, both sensational). Their sparring relationship is utter joy and increasingly touching.