Oxford Playhouse’s resident 17/25 Young Company rounded off a week of activities for junior thesps with a timely revival, admirably managed, of Tom Stoppard’s first international success, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

The production at once celebrated the 50th anniversary of the play, premiered by an Oxford student group on the Edinburgh Fringe, as well as the quatercentenary of the death of William Shakespeare, whose Hamlet supplies the framework of the piece.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are, of course, the college chums of Hamlet recruited by his usurping fratricide uncle Claudius to spy on the prince and, he hopes, to be agents in his murder.

As with all of us in life, however, their future is unknown to them, leading to the existential angst at the centre of the drama. While Pirandello gave us six characters in search of an author, Stoppard offers two in search of a play or, rather, an understanding of their roles in it.

In this ensemble production, directed in rollicking style by Jo Noble, the comic counterpoint to the pathos was well presented.

In a commendable sharing-out of roles, we saw different pairs of protagonists in each of the three acts, the Rosencrantzes all female, the Guildensterns male. Since it would be invidious to make comparisons, I shall merely note the all-round excellence of Chloe Swanson, Caitlin Carrick-Varty, Maddie Purefoy, Lucas Hopgood, Max O’Byrne and Adam Diaper.

Similarly, we had a trio of actors in the important role of Player (Calla Cambrey, Becky Chatwell and Chloe Jacques-Warton), but only one for Hamlet (Tim McGovern), Gertrude (Martha Ibbotson), Claudius (Jack Grieve), Ophelia (Molly Rolfe), Polonius (Laurence Scott) and Horatio (Irini Geleklidis).

The size of the company permitted an impressive team of Tragedians, striding on to the stage in hard hats and high visibility jackets singing the Proclaimers' 500 Miles.

Christopher Gray 4/5