MICHAEL Longhurst directs father and son, John and Lex Shrapnel, in a new production of Caryl Churchill’s A Number at the Nuffield this spring, in their first collaboration since the award-winning and Olivier-nominated West End hit Constellations.

“We’ve got 99 per cent the same genes as any other person.

We’ve got 30 per cent the same as a lettuce. Does that cheer you up at all?”

Bernard thinks he’s an only child.

At the age of 35, he learns otherwise.

Discovering the results of a scientific experiment that left him as one of “a number” of clones, Bernard confronts his father, Salter. As clones reveal themselves identities are challenged, but how will Salter reveal the true events of the past? And more importantly, which Bernard is the original?

A Number puts an astonishing twist on parental guilt and sibling rivalry.

In a bold new design, audiences will surround the actors onstage, intensifying the experience of the play. This is the first time that the Nuffield Theatre auditorium has been configured in this way and the staging will re-envisage the way theatre is experienced at Nuffield.

A Number marks the start of Nuffield’s season of celebrating Science and Art, preceding the Fulcrum Festival in March. It runs from February 6 to 22.