God's Dice review: Baddiel’s big ideas fall flat on the stage

David Baddiel is a man of many talents but his first play is mortifyingly bad.

An inquiry into the place where quantum physics and religious belief might meet, it serves up undigested lumps of science, middle-aged grumbling and lazy gags in a script lacking pace, focus or a single believable character.

Director James Grieve’s moribund production seems to suck all energy and charm from its leading man, Alan Davies. It opens in a lecture theatre where Davies’s physics professor Henry is accosted by young Christian student Edie (Leila Mimmack). If quantum theory suggests the universe is a place of infinite possibility, she says, Bible miracles are not only possible but relatively probable.

There are big ideas here, not just about science and religion, but about the post-truth social media world and the way it weaponises faith. But they are smothered by the endless, deadening amedrops of physicists and their theories.

Don’t get me wrong: God’s Dice isn’t a celebrity vanity project, carelessly tossed off. It’s a heartfelt, painstaking experiment in drama that sadly fails on just about every level.

Until Nov 30 (020 7478 0100, sohotheatre.com)