London Assurance

Set in the Regency era, the comedy takes its inspiration from famous 18th-century plays such as Sheridan's The Rivals, Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer and Colman and Garrick's The Clandestine Marriage.

The plum role is the 63?year?old dandy Sir Harcourt Courtly, about to be married to an 18-year-old country girl whom he has not seen since she was a child.

He arrives at her uncle's estate and falls in love with a middle-aged married woman with the splendid name of Lady Gay Spanker - in this case, horses being the object of chastisement.

In the ensuing imbroglio Harcourt plans an elopement disguised in a Little Bo-Peep bonnet and Simon Russell Beale is perfect in the role: vain, effete and tubby, he pouts, grimaces, postures and even pirouettes.

Harcourt's spendthrift son turns up on the scene and inevitably falls in love with the country girl - it's that sort of comedy.

Apart from Russell Beale there are some stand-out performances from Nick Sampson who plays the wonderfully haughty valet Cool and comes across as easily the most aristocratic person on stage.

Lady Spanker - who coins all her metaphors from the world of the saddle - is played by Fiona Shaw, crop in hand, with tally-ho glee.

And Richard Briers as her doddery old husband is a delight, especially when he growls like a dog on first meeting Harcourt.

London Assurance is good fun and hopefully one of Boucicault's neglected melodramas such as The Octoroon will get a serious as opposed to a sent-up revival as a result.

In repertoire until June. Box office: (020) 7452-3000.