There can be no apter location for staging Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia than the Howard Theatre of Downing College. Its indulgent Georgian design, especially the meticulously painted sky ceiling and the pastoral scene of the Charites directly above the proscenium arch, cannot offer a more absolute contrast with the versatile minimalism of the ADC or the Arts Theatre.

The palpably neoclassicist spirit extends seamlessly to the stage itself. The rule of symmetry reigns as the tutor and the pupil sit writing at opposite ends of a centre-stage table, each the mirror image of the other. The sense of order is almost oppressive; the play has begun even before it begins.

“Arcadia is a play of oppositions, transitions and blurred boundaries”

“Septimus, what is carnal embrace?” With what may be one of the most memorable first lines in contemporary English theatre, the semblance of decorum and gravity is turned against itself. Arcadia is a play of oppositions, transitions and blurred boundaries - between innocence and maturity, nature and artifice, order and chaos, passion and reason, the dead and the living.

Against the fitting backdrop of Cambridge during exam season, it is also concerned with the nature of research and experimentation, with the inherent dangers in our preferment for coherent narratives over all else. Yet despite all potential confusion and frustration, Hannah’s remark resonates: “It’s the wanting to know that makes us matter.”

Georgie Thorpe has made a commendable effort in bringing Stoppard’s prodigiously intricate and intelligent play back to the student stage. The script, with its almost neurotic attention for the slightest details, is faithfully followed; the costume design, delightfully, also offers a largely convincing reenactment of Georgian fashion and the 90s style. The purist cannot avoid a certain disappointment in Thomasina and her mother’s anachronistic french braids, the overall modernisation of male costumes in the pre-Regency half of the story, not to mention Lady Croom’s scandalously low waistline; after all, the clumsily inauthentic fancy dress of the modern characters in Scene 7, if there is to be any meaning at all, requires a contrast with the utmost verisimilitude in the clothing worn by their ancestors.

Any historical inaccuracy is, by all means, more than compensated for by most cast members. Phoebe Segal as Thomasina impeccably balances the young heroine’s sharp wit, cloying sweetness and blunt egotism. Perhaps a little less irritating than intended, the character exerts a firm magnetic pull on the sympathy of the audience in spite of all her manifest flaws. Lewis Owen delivers an equally superb performance as the articulate and profligate scholar Septimus Hodge, whose initial cheap charm condenses into something more profound and genuine as the play unfolds.

“Phoebe Segal as Thomasina impeccably balances the young heroine’s sharp wit, cloying sweetness and blunt egotism”

Also worth mentioning are Grace England (Lady Croom) and Aron Goldin (Ezra Chater) who provide much of the comedy in the play; the images of a deeply blushing and breathless Lady Croom, in the company of Septimus, complaining that “drawers are being worn now” or of Chater sombrely caressing the ruffles at his collar are not to be soon forgotten.

The role of Hannah Jarvis appears to have been written for Charlotte Cromie, who mimics the academic’s stiff dispassionate glance and clipped diction with such ease as to leave one entirely oblivious of the fact that one is watching a performance. Christian Harvey (Bernhard Nightingale) and Nick Chevis (Valentine Coverly) as her two vastly dissimilar admirers also offer a delectable blend of intellectualism with high comedy.

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Overall, a sensitive and satisfactory take on an uncommonly demanding script