It is possible that this co-production between the Jamie Lloyd Company and the National Theatre of Lucy Prebble’s edgy drama The Effect might set some records.
It is only 10 years since the National’s première production (in the smaller Cottesloe) directed by Rupert Goold with Billie Piper and Jonjo O’Neill in the leading roles. Typically, revivals might take twice as long.
Rather than a straight re-run, Lucy Prebble has updated the text and also adapted it for the current cast, supplementing explorations of gender issues with those of race.
Designer Soutra Gilmour and her lighting colleague, Jon Clark, present a stark vision with characters primarily stuck in bright, white squares, thereby amplifying themes that sometimes mirror science fiction.
The plot has echoes of another National Theatre hit, Blue/Orange, centring on a scientific research trial in which a pair of guinea pigs, Connie and Tristan, respectively played by Canadian actress Taylor Russell and Paapa Essiedu, are dosed up on a dopamine mood changer, designed to relieve depression.
The duo are strictly monitored by a pair of psychiatrists, Michele Austin as impersonal Lorna and her sinister, controlling colleague Toby, a master of passive aggression portrayed by Kobna Holdbrook-Smith.
While their backgrounds and personalities are divergent, putting together a female student from Canada with a Hackney-bred young wideboy might be asking for trouble, especially when the project requires them to maintain independence, but the drug is designed to do the opposite.
As a result, much of the play focuses on the building relationship between the subjects of the experiment, while in a rather more contrived manner, the interactions between the two doctors also veer away from strict professionalism.
The high stakes are then increased by the revelation that one or other of the participants is being fed placebos.
Using this mechanism in a version that has a considerably shorter running time than first time around (1¾ hours without an interval), Lucy Prebble is able to explore the nature of love and relationships at the same time as expanding out to consider aspects of gender and race, as well as science and religion.
While many viewers might still have vivid memories of the 2012/13 production, this newly crafted and superbly acted version still has the power to force audience members to consider a series of important issues in a new light, which is the strong indicator that they are watching a top drawer drama.
There will also appreciate the main benefit of watching a film version of a play, the ability to see right into the eyes of the performers, especially in moments of stress or crisis.
National Theatre at Home is available on subscription, broadcasts in HD, costs only £9.99 for a month or £99.99 for a year.