★★★☆☆ The play starts with a double dose of fiction – a fiction within a fiction; a fictional couple conjured up by a fictional writer whose fictional wife plays the fictional wife of…well you get the idea. All the signposts tell us we are in Stoppard territory. . . This is vintage Stoppard with all the trademark wordplay, philosophising, clever plotting and complex characters.

★★★☆☆ The fantastical, whimsical device of a magical piano that makes all who hear it start to dance has no small element of a fairy story, but without the darker tones of, say, Hans Anderson’s, The Red Shoes. Today we can only marvel at the success such a piece of silliness had on its first outing in the early 1950’s.

★★★☆☆ Sara Kestelman brought the role palpable belligerence, but also convinced with a performance that exposed Shepherd’s vulnerability and potpourri of delusions – where God and the Highway Code seemed to collide – with just enough nouse to hold off officialdom, but at a loss as to her toilet.

★★★★☆ The show makes no bones about its cinematic origins; indeed it wears them on its sleeve . . . It’s all done with a brio and wit that sets the tone for the whole show. There is even a cameo walk-on of a Hitchcock lookalike during some toing and froing . . .