Jumpers

Jumpers description

Tom Stoppard's comedy of murder, marriage and metaphysics returns to the London stage.

George Moore, Professor of Moral Philosophy, is upstairs trying to write a paper proving the existence of God. Downstairs, his wife Dotty, a reclusive former musical star, is throwing an election night party complete with a live band and a troupe of acrobats. During the festivities a professor is shot dead. Nobody saw who fired, and suspicion settles on Dotty.

Jumpers has not been seen on a London stage for more than twenty years. First staged by the National Theatre at the Old Vic in 1972, it won the Evening Standard Award for Best Play and has been revived only rarely since; its acrobatic philosophers remain among the boldest images in modern British comedy. Reviewing the premiere in The Times, Irving Wardle wrote that it had "more good lines a minute than any other modern comedy".

The play is written by Tom Stoppard, the Oscar-winning author of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Arcadia, The Real Thing and Leopoldstadt. It is directed by Blanche McIntyre, who staged Stoppard's The Invention of Love at Hampstead Theatre and whose work includes productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre.

Casting is to be announced. The production plays on the Hampstead Theatre Main Stage and carries an age guidance of 14+, with nudity, sexual references and depictions of death.

Book tickets for the first London revival in over two decades of Stoppard's funniest philosophical thriller.

Playing at Hampstead Theatre

Eton Avenue, Swiss Cottage, London, NW3 3EU GB (venue info)

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