One of Tom Stoppard's finest plays, Arcadia is set both at the start of the 19th century and in the present day. Its setting is Sidley Park, an English country house whose ever-changing gardens reflect the emotional and intellectual fashions of the time. The action jumps from Thomasina Coverley's mathematics lessons, interrupted by the off-stage philandering of a certain Byronic houseguest, to the modern day academics, Hannah, Bernard and Val, each desperate to find scholarly miracles in the history of Sidley Park, which range from fanciful reconstructions of Byron's life, to extraordinary mathematical discoveries.

The Oxford University Dramatic Society's summer touring production takes a play featuring garden design and performs it in a walled garden. Sadly, Christ Church does not offer the rolling parkland, ha-ha and hermitage that Arcadia debates and, as the play is set entirely indoors with a heavy focus on science and mathematics, the effort seems wasted. Despite this, the production is mostly flawless; well cast and evidently well-rehearsed with excellent acting and only a little over-enthusiastic arm waving.

Attention to props is well rewarded as details such as a pet tortoise marked the passing of time, supporting Arcadia's witty catalogue of half-guessed truths and hapless academic theorising. Only the costumes display occasional sloppiness, a problem sadly emphasised by discussion of period dress towards the end of the play.

Jessica Guise and Owen Findlay create wholly believable academics in Hannah Jarvis and Bernard Nightingale, whose confused groping into history is made all the more entertaining by their subtle playing of Stoppard's dramatic irony. On Monday's opening night, the actors soldiered on when interrupted by a helicopter and the encroaching night mirrored the ever-later hour of the action. As darkness fell, wind whistled through chestnut trees, melancholy piano music floated through the night air and an eerie, elegiac beauty surrounded the doomed youth of Thomasina (played by Charlotte Bayley).

Against this haunting backdrop the play reached its perfect ending. Although initially faltering as much as Thomasina learning to waltz, this is a promising production with some excellent performances.

The play can be seen at Christ Church until Sunday, and will be performed again at Ardington House, near Wantage, next Thursday. Arcadia goes north to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe between August 5 and 11 (Bedlam Theatre).