A dizzying, dazzling theatrical experience

REVIEWED IN LONDON, SEPTEMBER 2017

Tom Hollander earns his national treasure stripes with an ebullient performance in Tom Stoppard's bounding study of the difference between memory and remembering, wrapped up in a dizzyingly delightful blanket of witty word-play, surreal dance numbers and enough Wilde references to fill a handbag.

A memoir spoken aloud, Travesties follows the reminiscences of Henry Carr during a WWI era posting in a minor position of the British consulate in Zurich. His little, fallible memories of big people, from the serious minded or limericking James Joyce, father of Dada Tristan Zara and Lenin on his way back to wreak havoc on Russia. Using the trellis of his appearance at the time in The Importance of Being Earnest, the tendrils of his mind twist hither and thither as he imagines himself a bigger, more integral part in the artistic and political revolutions blooming around him. It's all very silly until you recognise yourself, and the fact anecdotage is a social currency and here Stoppard shows us how it's done.

Just as nightmares of English exams did their bit to ruin Stoppard for me, Patrick Marber's razor sharp revival of Travesties undoes the past brilliantly, righting past wrongs for both me and lead character Henry Carr with such deft skill, a perfect mixture of fun and folly, I can't wait to see it again.

View our show pages for more information about Travesties, American Airlines Theater.