bennet_7

My favourite play, Arcadia by Tom Stoppard, is being revived on Broadway this year and Tom Riley is going to be playing Septimus and he's actually who I cast in that role when I thought about who could realistically play the role tomorrow if they made a film.

(Rufus Sewell, who originated the role, will always be my dream Septimus.)

Of course, there's not a chance that I'll actually get to see this (phooey to geography and expense) but maybe if I keep on dreaming they'll film it too!

If you haven't read Arcadia you must (hxxp to http)! It's about poetry and maths and landscape architecture and madness and love and duels and academia and rice pudding and tortoises. Or as wikipedia puts it:

Arcadia is set in Sidley Park, an English country house, in both the years 1809–1812 and the present day—1993 in the original production. The activities of two modern scholars and the house's current residents are juxtaposed with the lives of those who lived there 180 years earlier.

In 1809, Thomasina Coverly, the daughter of the house, is a precocious teenager with ideas about mathematics well ahead of her time. She studies with her tutor, Septimus Hodge, a friend of Lord Byron (who is an unseen guest in the house). In the present, a writer and an academic converge on the house: Hannah Jarvis, the writer, is investigating a hermit who once lived on the grounds; Bernard Nightingale, a professor of literature, is investigating a mysterious chapter in the life of Byron. As their investigations unfold, helped by Valentine Coverly, a post-graduate student in mathematical biology, the truth about what happened in Thomasina's lifetime is gradually revealed.

Thomasina: Septimus, what is carnal embrace?

Septimus: Carnal embrace is the practice of throwing one’s arms around a side of beef.

Thomasina: Is that all?

Septimus: No ... a shoulder of mutton, a haunch of venison well hugged, an embrace of grouse ... caro, carnis; feminine; flesh.

Love it, love it, love it.