The splendid comedy double-act that Daniel Radcliffe and Joshua Maguire supply in Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead has been packing in the punters at the Old Vic since the end of February.

The box-office magic wrought by Harry Potter star Radcliffe meant an extension to the run, until May 7.

But those who can’t get tickets will still be able to see the production, which is being offered by National Theatre Live in the usual participating cinemas - including a number in Oxfordshire - next Thursday (April 20). For information go to ntlive.com.

The revival, under director David Leveaux, celebrates the 50th anniversary of the first London staging of the play at the same venue,which was then the National Theatre’s base.

This high-profile production followed the first showing a year earlier by the Oxford Theatre Group, which earned a rave review spotted by the NT boss. The rest - as they say - is history.

Radcliffe’s involvement can be seen as a further successful attempt to distance himself from his Hogwart’s persona, following West End appearances in Peter’s Shaffer’s Equus and Martin McDonagh’s The Cripple of Inishmaan.

He and McGuire prove an adept comic turn as Hamlet’s college mates, imported into Elsinore to keep an eye on the increasingly wayward prince.

Cross-talk comedy is combined with deeper musings on the human condition, as the pair ponder the nature of their place at court, just as all of us wonder at the big ‘why?’ of existence.

Around them, meanwhile, swirl momentous events involving major characters in the drama, including Hamlet (Luke Mullins), his mother Gertrude (Marianne Oldham) and rejected girlfriend Ophelia (Helena Wilson).

There are many in-jokes concerning the acting profession, most supplied by the excellent David Haig, in fruity actor manager style as The Player, at the head of a motley troupe of thesps.

CHRISTOPHER GRAY 5/5