Put them in the right order, and you can give the world a little nudge

There's a line in Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing (currently at the Old Vic) that made me smile in recognition - 'I don't like artists, I like singles' - but having seen Stoppard's Arcadia last year, and now this revival, I may reconsider that philosophy.

The Real Thing is a play about love, and also about writing. The protagonist, Henry (superbly played by Toby Stephens) is an intellectual smart-ass playwright with more than a passing resemblance to Stoppard himself. He leaves his wife Charlotte for actress Annie, who in turn cuckolds him with a young lover. Henry is a man who uses his command of language as a weapon, but he also defends the use of words as a means of advancing ideas. He compares them to cricket bats, which are made out of several pieces of wood balanced in perfect proportion so as to send a ball on its way at just the right velocity.

This is a fine play, the real thing in more ways than one, with excellent acting, witty dialogue and a literary style that is unusual in modern theatre but never quite tips over into pretension. As a humble creative writing student myself, it's when one watches a play like this and then struggles even to write a short review, that one realises the gulf that exists between we aspirants and the truly gifted. But it gives you something to aim for, even if you're having a little trouble getting off the launch pad.