I must have known in advance that this production of Hedda at the Oxford Playhouse was a student show, but the fact certainly escaped me as I rushed to the Oxford Playhouse on a Baltic-cold evening, making my seat with just minutes to spare.

And it wasn’t until I leafed through the programme in the interval that I was reminded that it was not a professional production, but a show by Oxford University student company Peripeteia Productions. It was that good.

The play is a classic of world theatre, though Lucy Kirkwood’s razor-sharp production updates Henrik Ibsen’s 1891 Hedda Gabler to an Oxford morality tale.

Hedda, played with deliciously cold hearted callousness by India Opzoomer (“You’re just brittle,” says her doting and rather wet husband, George) is newly wed, already unhappy, carrying a baby she doesn’t want and living in a tatty London flat.

George (played by the excellent Finlay Stroud) is a second rate academic whose anticipated senior lectureship back at Oxford is threatened by a superior mind, Eli Loveberg (Derek Mitchell) who also happens to be the real object of Hedda’s affection, as well as that of her sweet, though badly put upon, friend – and George’s ex –Thea Eldrige (played convincingly and endearingly by Georgie Murphy).

What unfolds from this tangled emotional mess is an utterly gripping, tale of betrayal, Machiavellian scheming and madness – with tragic consequences.

Our affections switch between each of the six-member cast. While Hedda comes across as cruel and self-absorbed, we later sympathise, a little, with this damaged soul, albeit one who is spoilt, entitled and over privileged.

No one comes out looking good, each selfish at best and frequently vile. Such is the power of the performances it’s hard to find sympathy for any of them.

A compelling tale of privilege, jealousy, treachery and academic ambition. How very Oxford.

TIM HUGHES 5/5