YOU might think that the mind-boggling postulates currently exercising the finest scientific minds concerning the quantum multiverse theory might not be the stuff of red-blooded theatrical engagement.

You’d be wrong, though, because Constellations by Nick Payne is a wholly engaging and thought-provoking dramatic conceit.
It explores the possibility that we may all be inhabiting only one of many universes and poses the question “what if?” in a rom com, originally produced at the Royal Court, which has unusual intellectual rigour.

In it beekeeper Roland (Joe Armstrong) hooks up with cosmologist Marianne (Louise Brealey) at a barbecue and, in a subsequent series of short and often witty scenes, the alternative directions their ensuing relationship might take, from the first flush of passion through separation and a possible reconciliation — the latter underpinned by personal tragedy — is explored from radically different perspectives.

For these are two very different people — Roland is fascinated by the sophistication of the ordered universe created by bees while Marianne is equally engrossed in the mind-boggling implications of string theory.

There’s no linear development — what Payne does is replay each stage in the pair’s turbulent relationship as, like atoms, they alternately attract and repel each other to create an entirely different scenario.

It’s a device which subtly points up their differing states of being as they play out the consequences of taking a different course of action in life in another “universe.”

Directed by Michael Longhurst and simply but suggestively staged, Constellations stands out from run-of-the-mill West End fare in attempting to bring a hugely complex and significant area of scientific exploration to the stage in just over an hour’s playing time.

The fact that it succeeds in doing this so persuasively, in a play which is worth seeing twice, is due in no small part to the excellent and technically accomplished performances from Armstrong and Brealey.

The programme notes on the “many worlds interpretation” are an engrossing read too.

Highly recommended.

Runs until August 1, box office: trafalgar-studios.co.uk

Review by Len Phelan