A tough old bird, this. Oscar Wilde’s 1895 “trivial comedy for serious people” has been revived umpteen times and has survived being a staple of school plays and am-dram societies, and even a film version with Reese Witherspoon. I was slightly wary of yet another West End version, no matter how starry.

I needn’t have worried; the innate quality of the play and David Suchet’s dignified Lady Bracknell bore away all before it. The play itself is the epitome of silliness: two young bachelors (Michael Benz as Jack and Philip Cumbus as Algernon) and their lady friends (Emily Barber as Gwendolen and Imogen Doel as Cecily), mistaken identities, babies removed at birth, and some good old fashioned snobbery (one wonders whether the notion of the “unfashionable side” of Belgrave Square would have seemed as absurd to the 1895 Londoner as it does to the modern Londoner) are pretty much your lot.

But oh, what lines are contained within the script! Cumbus was a delight in Act 1 discussing Bunburyists with great aplomb, and Benz a suitably stiff foil for him. Barber had little to do in this act but established her presence well, and Suchet resisted any temptation to excessive camp, playing Lady Bracknell in as straight a manner as possible. One forgets that along with such classic lines as “To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness,” are truths such as “Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone.”

In Acts II and III, the plot (such as it is) comes to fruition and we hear that “flowers are as common here, Miss Fairfax, as people are in London” although I’m not sure we needed Doel to gurn at that point to make the double entendre clear. Act III sees Lady Bracknell’s magnificent return and observations which retain their truth, such as “London society is full of women of the very highest birth who have, of their own free choice, remained thirty-five for years.”

The acting is uniformly excellent. The actors don’t quite manage to make the play seem new again, but that would be extremely difficult. Barber and Doel are quaintly arch throughout, and all of the actors generally resist the temptation to over-egg the pudding. Suchet is, of course, the star of the show. He is excellent but in fairness, could probably do this in his sleep. Ah well, he deserves to enjoy himself after the superlative work he has given us of late (his work in All My Sons and Long Day’s Journey Into Night lives vividly in my memory). Long may his Lady Bracknell tour.