Plaudits for a three-hander

TECHNO-ART Normally my Techno-Art bits are appended as two-sentence feuilletons to something bigger. But Michael Frayn's "Copenhagen" deserves a full-scale post.

I don't for a second understand atomic physics but - as with very difficult poetry, Ezra Pound say - I think I love its shape, its size, its sound or its very obscurity. The great thing about "Copenhagen" is that the hard stuff is at the very heart of the story. Bohr and Heisenberg have been wrestling with a third character, the atom, and they get to talk about how many rounds they think they have won. And they do this in the persuasively allusive language one might expect from professionals.

There are moral issues too but these are interwoven with the darkly fascinating study of what was then - perhaps still is - science's last barrier. On the whole, the theatre (other than masterpieces and then mainly Shakespeare) frequently disappoints me but not on this occasion. Nor did it disappoint my sister-in-law, who accompanied my wife and I, and who had never heard of "Copenhagen" before entering the theatre.