The Real Thing

Real Thing, The

    Author: Tom Stoppard

    First Performance: 1982, London

    Published: 1982; rev. 1983, 1984

    Genre: Com. in 2 acts

    Setting: Various interiors in London, c.1980

    Cast: 4m, 3f

Max discovers that his wife Charlotte has been unfaithful, but this is revealed to be a scene from Henry's latest play, House of Cards. In fact, Max's real-life wife Annie is having an affair with Henry, who is married to Charlotte. Henry, a successful writer of 40, shortly to appear on Desert Island Discs, leaves Charlotte to set up home with Annie, 10 years his junior. Two years later, Annie is involved with an AWOL Scots soldier Brodie, who agrees to join her on an anti-nuclear demonstration. In an attempt to impress Annie, he sets fire to a wreath on the Cenotaph and is jailed. She asks Henry to...

[The entire page is 314 words long]

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