Charlotte and Theodore at Richmond Theatre

I do not know what has gone wrong, or where, but this was the second time in as many weeks when I suddenly became aware of something on coming to Richmond Theatre soon when I would have booked it ages ago if I had know about it earlier. Kris Marshall was an obvious draw and so was the prospect of a "witty and challenging new play".

Perhaps I missed some emails or perhaps it was a late booking but, whatever the reason, I did not appear to be alone and there was an all seats at £25 offer on when I booked. That meant a slight upgrade from my usual seat to Dress Circle A19.

The play had three themes, the working relationship between married couple Charlotte and Theodore who were academics in the same philosophy department, their philosophical discussions that started with Plato’s Allegory of the Cave and led to the conflict between free speech and inclusion, and their family life as parents.

The family bit was minor and irrelevant and seems to have been added just for laughs.

The philosophy theme started a bit heavy, I am not sure how much sense it would make to people with little exposure to philosophy, and got a bit unrealistic with Theodore taking a heated stance against pronouns. The play wanted to use the word "woke", thought better of it and used the synonym "kind" instead.

The changing working relationship between the two was the strongest theme.

The three only slight connected themes made the play a little disjointed at times but there was plenty of good stuff in there to generate an entertaining and stimulating hour and a half. The performances of Kris Marshall and Eve Ponsonby were fine though there was little real drama to give them the space to shine.

While Charlotte and Theodore had its limitations it was a perfectly decent night out and I am glad that I went.