A Carefully worded notice in the Playhouse foyer tells us that the ideas and actions presented on stage during God and Stephen Hawking are not necessarily those of any real person, writes Chris Gray.

It's a response, no doubt, to the criticism of Oxford-born Prof Hawking, who is reportedly displeased that aspects of his private life particularly his divorce are covered in Robin Hawdon's new play.

His complaints seem churlish, perhaps, when one sees how well he emerges from this fascinating study of his remarkable career.

But how could it be otherwise? His battle to unravel the mysteries of the Universe while himself fighting incurable disease is, of course, the stuff of heroism. To have presented him in other than an heroic light would have jarred with a public only too familiar with the story. One could have wished, however, that Mr Hawdon had followed the example set in his subject's best-selling science book A Brief History of Time and been, well, rather briefer about his business.

The problem is partly that those of a scientific bent will already know about quarks, black holes, singularities and the other obscure phenomena with which the play is concerned. For others they remain a mystery impossible to penetrate in a night of theatre, however long.

When the science stuff really gets going, it seems to the audience a bit like sitting in a rather boring lecture a feeling not alleviated by director Jonathan Church's rather static staging.

As for the "does God exist?" debate which we witness, this does little more than rehearse the arguments heard nightly in countless student bedrooms, fuelled by cocoa or something stronger, and which have been tediously spelt out lately in The Times in a debate between Ludovic Kennedy and William Rees Mogg.

In the end it is best, I think, to savour the biographical study of Hawking which the play offers, with Stephen Boxer presenting a superb portrait of the increasingly stricken scientist, and Teresa Gallagher as his courageous wife.

Robert Hardy's role is that of God, leaving us with precious few criteria on which to judge his performance. But when the Almighty slips into such parts as Einstein, the Pope and even Queen Elizabeth II (I deserve an Oscar for this!") we have the opportunity to appreciate the versatility of a fine old trouper.

Surprisingly, perhaps, his performance is not without humour demonstrating that laughter can be generated by even the most serious of subjects.