Review of The Real Thing at The Old Vic: Unraveling an Impossible Equation

Rated 🍯🍯🍯

The Old Vic stage set up for Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing

This is the final piece in a three-part series of reflections (here are Part 1 and Part 2) on Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing, which the bee recently had the pleasure of watching at the Old Vic Theatre. Spoilers galore, read with caution!

Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing has returned to the Old Vic, challenging audiences with its witty exploration of love, fidelity, and the complexities of intellectual and emotional engagement. Max Webster’s production may be sleek, stylish, and polished, but beneath that surface, the play reveals a chaotic human heart—a tension that’s conspicuous by contrast with an immaculate set design.

Peter McKintosh’s midnight-blue paneling and meticulously arranged white sofas create a stark contrast with the emotional turmoil of the characters. The set design sets the tone for the play brilliantly, its spick-and-span appearance almost mocking the characters’ inner lives. The environment lulls both them and the audience into a false sense of calm—a polished exterior only to soon unleash a can of worms. It’s as if the physical space is looking at these tangled humans and cruelly reminding them that their minds and hearts are anything but ordered.

Henry’s Transformation—A Pyrrhic Victory?

Henry’s emotional evolution at the end of the play is nothing short of remarkable. He confronts his feelings head-on, exposing his raw vulnerability to Annie. This, in many ways, is the real thing—the honest, unvarnished emotional truth that Annie seemed to be searching for. Yet, when Henry finally offers it, she rejects him. James McArdle’s performance perfectly balances Henry’s intellectual bravado with his raw, vulnerable side as the play progresses.

The rejection doesn’t negate his growth, in the bee’s humble opinion. Henry’s transformation is a personal victory, one that sets him up for a more authentic emotional future. The failure only lies in the fact that Annie, with her emotional chaos, is incapable of appreciating this moment. She’s not equipped to receive the emotional truth Henry offers because she’s too enmeshed in her own restlessness.

However, there’s a cruel irony here. By abandoning his intellectualism and fully embracing his emotions, Henry loses the relationship. Annie’s rejection provides a kind of vindication for his original approach—his intellectual way of processing emotions may have been more suitable for navigating the messy waters of love, at least with someone like Annie. His raw vulnerability, though a triumph in personal growth, wasn’t enough to save this particular relationship. But that doesn’t make his transformation futile—it simply shows that Henry’s growth is for his benefit, not for the survival of a doomed relationship.

Annie’s Motion—Authenticity or Delusion?

While Bel Powley brings emotional energy to the role—she commands a fiery presence on stage—her character Annie’s constant movement becomes a kind of regression. She intellectualizes her way out of guilt, much like Henry once did with his emotions. But while Henry grows, Annie remains stuck, forever running from any real emotional stillness. The tension between these two characters is palpable, beautifully delivered by the actors, but it leaves the question: is a dynamic between such polar opposites ever sustainable?

Annie’s rejection of Henry isn’t simply a refusal of his emotional vulnerability—it’s the inevitable outcome of her restless nature. Annie isn’t searching for deeper emotional fulfillment; she’s searching for movement. Her affair with Billy isn’t born out of dissatisfaction with Henry, nor does it reflect any emotional void that needs filling. Instead, Billy represents the next exciting thing that came knocking, and Annie, being who she is, opened the door. It’s not about Henry, or what their relationship lacks—it’s about Annie’s insatiable need for adventure, for something new to disrupt the stillness.

When confronted by Henry, she doesn’t express guilt or regret. Instead, she tells him plainly that he needs more in his life than just her. This is where the play comes full circle: while Henry began the play intellectualizing his emotions, by the end, it’s Annie who does so, using intellect as a way of avoiding emotional accountability. Her affair with Billy isn’t about finding something real—it’s about her need for constant motion, free from guilt or regret.

Ultimately, Henry couldn’t have done anything differently to save the relationship. Annie’s restless nature, her addiction to chaos, makes her incapable of sustaining a meaningful relationship—especially with someone like Henry, who is striving for emotional depth. His growth has outpaced her ability to appreciate or reciprocate it, and her constant search for the next thrill ensures that she will continue to move through life, never quite finding what she claims to seek.

Can Henry Ever Find the Real Thing?

By the end of the play, Henry has shown an impressive amount of growth. He’s confronted his emotions, exposed his vulnerabilities, and demonstrated a new humility. This humility sets him up for deeper emotional connections in the future. Crucially, though, this doesn’t mean Henry should abandon his intellectual strengths—writing and language are how he makes sense of his emotions. For Henry, engaging with his emotions through the lens of language is not a crutch, but a way to process the chaos of love, jealousy, and vulnerability. Why should he stop using the tools that help him understand his own heart?

The critique of intellectualization—this idea that we must observe emotions without judgment, or sit passively with them, as prescribed by mindfulness advocates—doesn’t apply to everyone, least of all Henry. Life is lived inside the mind, and our minds use culture and language to make sense of our experiences. Yes, intellectualization may have its flaws—translation is imperfect, some emotions resist understanding—but it’s not inherently lesser than some “pure” emotional engagement. Henry doesn’t need to sacrifice his intellectual approach to be emotionally authentic; he just needs a partner who understands that his way of processing emotions is valid.

A Missed Note—Music and Exhaustion

Stoppard uses musical references throughout the play, particularly in scenes like Henry’s obsession with Desert Island Discs. And while McArdle’s performance during these scenes is impeccable, the significance of the musical references felt exhausting and a bit impenetrable. The audience is asked to care deeply about Henry’s perfectionist approach to music, yet the references often felt distant and disengaged from the emotional stakes of the play. The constant punctuating of the play with musical cues felt more like a distraction than an enhancement—perhaps a nod to Henry’s perfectionism, but one that left your faithful (but unrefined) bee disengaged.

The Real Thing—A Mirage for Some, A Hope for Others?

For Annie, the real thing is in the perpetual motion, in never quite arriving. The real thing for Henry isn’t her acceptance—it’s his own growth. In Annie, Henry had a partner whose emotional chaos was fundamentally incompatible with his search for meaning and depth. But now, after his personal transformation, he’s better equipped to find someone who is looking for the same things he is. Henry’s prognosis for the future is hopeful. He needs a partner who values both intellectual engagement and emotional truth—someone who can meet him on his own terms, without rejecting the way he processes life. The real thing for Henry, then, isn’t just emotional vulnerability—it’s finding someone who appreciates that his intellectualism and emotions aren’t in conflict; they’re in conversation.

Whether he chooses to see this as growth or failure is up to him. The only real thing is Henry’s evolution, and whether he acknowledges it or not, that growth is what ultimately sets him up for something deeper and more meaningful in the future.

Conclusion

In the end, the play leaves us with a sobering but hopeful message: the real thing exists, but only if you’re willing to see it. For some, like Annie, it’s always a mirage, something out of reach. For others, like Henry, it’s not a destination or even a relationship—it’s an internal process, a recognition of one’s own growth and the ability to carry that forward into future connections.

In reflecting on this production of The Real Thing, the bee is left with a lingering frustration—not because the play was intellectually dense, but perhaps because it wasn’t as deep as it is often touted. The characters’ so-called intellectualism felt more like an overanalysis that didn’t carry the weight of genuine philosophical inquiry or self-reflection. Stoppard’s reputation as a playwright often relies on creating characters who wield intellect like a weapon, but in this instance, their 'intellectualism' was just a hollow, superficial proclivity towards specific behavioural traits and preferences. The story wasn’t cerebral or layered enough to justify the deep, intellectual dissection it seems to invite.

Annie's ability to continue causing harm with impunity, even as Henry goes through a painful transformation, creates a sense of imbalance and narrative frustration, which are only heightened by impenetrable and drawn-out musical interjections. The play's immediate effect was to cause the bee to question whether the real story here is one of emotional confusion rather than deep philosophical engagement or complexity.

Three stars.

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Watched Sept 2024 at The Old Vic Theatre, London. The Real Thing runs through end of October 2024 at The Old Vic.