REVIEW: QED by James Turner at the Drayton Arms 2 – 6 December 2025

‘Greek philosophy as we never knew her’ ★★★

I don’t think any theatre publicist should ever promise a laugh a minute. It’s virtually impossible to live up to. And if, like QED at the Drayton Arms, there are quite a few genuinely witty lines, and a rather amusing idea at the heart of the show, you do yourself no favours by over-promising.   

These lines and this idea carry the hour-long show along quite pleasantly, and you are inclined to enjoy the entertaining dialogue and the easy, understated performances, and not worry too much about the aching gap where a plot ought to be.

The play is set in ancient Greece and there are three characters: the young blood Glaucon (Aidan Parsons, all boyish enthusiasm); the philosopher Plotinus (Huw Landauer, getting a laugh from physical timidity); and the woman whom they believe to be a man, Aristion (Alice Hope Wilson in a child’s playbox black beard which she has to lift up to drink.) 

Because they believe her to be a man, she is a suitable object upon which to lavish love and sexual adoration, and the discovery that she is in fact female comes as a nasty shock to both of them. But when they recover, they decide to “spit in the face of polite society” and direct their attentions to someone of the opposite sex.



There’s a lot of philosophical banter, and lot of scatological jokes, most of them about male sexual organs. There are some very funny moments which, the night I was there, did not get the laugh they deserved. I am not sure why, but I wonder if the cast (who are good) need to look at their comic timing. The moment when Glaucon reads her the love poem he has written, which turns out to be a limerick, ought to have done better with the audience than it did.

QED by JAMES TURNER at the Drayton Arms 2 – 6 December 2025

BOX OFFICE https://thedraytonarmstheatre.co.uk/qed

DIRECTOR / SEBASTIÃO MARQUES LOPES

PRODUCER | CHRISANTHI LIVADIOTIS

 CAST

GLAUCON | Aidan Parsons

 PLOTINUS | Huw Landauer

 ANDREIOS/ARISTION | Alice Hope Wilson