RSC activates Large Hadron Collider drama by Oppenheimer playwright

Tom Morton-Smith's The Earthworks, set just before the LHC was switched on at Cern, is the latest collision between science and theatre

Tom Morton-Smith was never any good at physics at school. "I was rubbish at science," he concedes with a laugh, "and I have the opposite of a mathematical brain."

It's a surprising admission from a playwright whose 2015 breakout hit, Oppenheimer, explored the tragic life of the visionary atom bomb inventor, and whose new play for the RSC will yet again grapple with colliding atoms and their explosive consequences. The Earthworks is set just before the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was switched on at Cern in Switzerland.