In 1809 at Sidley Park in Derbyshire, the orderly classicism of Lady Croom’s Capability Browns grounds is being turned into picturesque romantic chaos, as fashion dictates, by landscape architect ‘Culpability Noakes’.

In a regency room overlooking the work, is Lady Croom’s brilliant adolescent daughter, Thomasina Coverly, with her handsome, clever tutor Septimus Hodge. Their maths lesson is interrupted by, among others, the imperious, amorous Lady Croom and Ezra Chater, a cuckold and minor poet, determined on satisfaction.

180 years later, in the same room, a corresponding group, comprising a mathematician, a biographer/historian and a vulgar academic, try to unravel the events of 1809 with spectacularly erroneous results.

Tom Stoppard’s critically acclaimed, award winning play premiered at the National Theatre in 1993.

“Carnal embrace is the practice of throwing one’s arms around a side of beef.” – Septimus Hodge