Heroic hunchbacks, men in frocks and a woman called Robert, treading the boards of a genuine Victorian vaudeville theatre: this can only be pantomime, right?

Well, close. But how many pantomimes concern themselves with the founding of the Royal Society or make gags about the Circle of Willis?

This is The Tragedy of Thomas Hobbes, a new play from the Royal Shakespeare Company that chronicles the philosophical battles between leading Enlightenment figures.

In the red corner, we have an ensemble of natural philosophers: Robert Hooke (the dashing hunchback), Robert Boyle (Mrs), John Wilkins (founder of the Royal Society) and a precocious teenager called Isaac. Pitted against them is Thomas ‘Leviathan’ Hobbes, an original if less-than-rigorous thinker with little faith in empiricism.

The three-hour play puts a new spin on ‘experimental theatre’. Dogs are dissected on stage, fires are extinguished in vacuum chambers and the path to knowledge is debated through scholarly broadsides. You’ve probably never seen anything quite like this before—imagine Shakespeare having coffee with Neal Stephenson and Widow Twanky and you probably should be institutionalised are part-way there.

Now, I’m a M@ of very little brain and often have problems following complex plots. Despite being hygge with most of the characters and the period, I came away more than a little confused. Why is this a ‘tragedy of Thomas Hobbes’? He’s shrugged off as a loon before the play is two-thirds through, and attention shifts more to the eclipsing of Hooke by Newton. And what, by the beard of Bekker, is the ending all about?

This is, nonetheless, a hugely enjoyable evening. Even if you detest theatre, the building is a real treasure. Wilton’s Music Hall is a crumbling, peeling relic of another age, lovingly unrestored with ne’er a splash of paint since the 19th Century.

Wilton’s, from Phil Gyford’s Flickr photostream.

Each clap of stage thunder had me glancing at the ceiling, alert for plummeting plaster lest the performance literally bring the house down and provide some real tragedy.

Sadly, it looks like tickets are now sold out for the remaining performances, but I’ll let you all know if the run is extended.