I Want To Sleep With Tom Stoppard

Over too much wine, and scotch (and wine), and a meal presented in the only way it can be if it's to be consumed in the kitchen of a house opposite, the sailing club generations butt heads and wax lyrical on the place of theatre in the world. It hardly needs be pointed out that this charming meta-chat takes place on stage, and playwright Toby Smith has wrought more than a few laughs with this obvious almost-metaphor, charging the script with intertextual allusions to the greats, the moral dilemmas of actors selling chocolate bars on screen to make a crust, and more than a few jabs in its own ribs.

Watching Tom Stokes as he unravels into discomfort is a joy, his downtrodden character comedically resilient despite defeat from the others who populate the dinner table – Wendy Strehlow as his mother, suitably proper and putting on airs; a drunken dentist father played with just the right amount of sleaze and self worth by Andrew McFarlane, and a show-stealing Caroline Brazier as the older girlfriend, the instigator, the proud propagator of theatre, the performer. It's a huge role, layered and captivating, and Brazier is suitably larger than life. This is great theatre for theatre people, but beyond that it's also a roaringly funny snapshot of the upper middle-class and how dreams and desires shape us.