The Hard Problem - NT Live

Broadcasted live by the National Theatre. The new play by Academy-awarded and acclaimed playwright Tom Stoppard (Shakespeare in Love, Arcadia etc.), directed by Nicholas Hytner, outgoing artistic director of the National Theatre (Othello, Hamlet, One Man, Two Guvnors). A young psychology researcher is nursing a private sorrow and a troubling question: «If there is nothing but matter, what is consciousness?»

Hilary, a young psychology researcher at a brainscience institute, is nursing a private sorrow and a troubling question at work, where psychology and biology meet. If there is nothing but matter, what is consciousness? This is ‘the hard problem’ which puts Hilary at odds with her colleagues who include her first mentor Spike, her boss Leo and the billionaire founder of the institute, Jerry. Is the day coming when the computer and the fMRI scanner will answer all the questions psychology can ask? Meanwhile Hilary needs a miracle, and she is prepared to pray for one.