The dialogue lurches from cod-17th-century ('I spit on any question and quarter you pose!') to hip hop and mockney: 'Hey, Robert! Alright mate.' You'd have to be a philosopher to know what Hobbes was actually saying: he is barely present in the action. The natural philosopher Robert Boyle is - bewilderingly - played by a woman. Newton ('We embrace your calculus') is a mop-haired youngster. Charles II is a Russell Brand wig-tosser in tight trousers, a one-man argument for republicanism. His play, set in the newly media-friendly Civil War period (will the credit crunch and The Devil's Whore make puritans of us all?), flings philosophy and local colour all over the place. Things might go better if Shaplin relaxed. Shaplin has said that 'Inside me, there's got to be a voice saying: "Shakespeare! Man, I can do better than him!"' Why does there have to be this voice? He and Shakespeare aren't up against each other on Strictly Come Dancing. These are conditions for which most playwrights would kill. He has been granted a two-year residency at Warwick University and Stratford-upon-Avon his play has been evocatively directed with a strong cast (and figures flitting through the balconies and shadows over the stage) at one of the most entrancing of all theatres, Wilton's Music Hall.
The American dramatist Adriano Shaplin is writer-in-residence at the RSC, where the artistic director Michael Boyd has described him as a 'free-roaming agent provocateur' and a writer of 'sheer creative magma'. The Tragedy of Thomas Hobbes is a tragedy of wasted resources.
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