Habeas Corpus

Habeas Corpus is Alan Bennett's Donald McGill saucy seaside postcard play - a tribute to English prudery and to an obsession with boobs, bottoms and sex with the wrong partner.

But as the title would suggest it also has a serious undertow of death, bodily functions and missed opportunities. In fact, it's a little like a farce that might have been written by Philip Larkin.

To work properly the play needs to have a stylised production and heightened playing. That is exactly what it gets in Ben Twist's glorious production. The tone is set by Mrs Swabb the cleaning lady and (sort of) Greek Chorus. The part was written to be played in drag but often isn't. Here it is, and Richard Addison does it to perfection.

Arthur Wickstead, the doctor with a lust for his female patients but not for his wife, is brought to full lugubrious life by Dougal Lee. His many shifts of tone are achieved, with superb nuance and split-second timing. His harridan of a wife is given full battle-axe mode by Karen Davies - when she is not being voraciously sexy for her other hapless male visitors, that is.

One of these is Sir Percy Shorter, short of stature but with pomposity to spare, and Robin Harvey Edwards has him to a T. A wonderful comic performance.

In fact the ensemble work, the movement, the comic exaggerations, the timing and the musical routines are all expertly achieved by a cast working at full expertise. This is a play that demands total precision and that's what it gets.

Ken Harrison's end-of-pier set, with its witty props and delectably funny projections, inhabited by his perfectly designed costumes, becomes almost as important as the actors. So too does the lighting - the sort you are meant to notice - designed by Ace McCarron.

This exceptional production doesn't stint on the underlying melancholy but, unless you're feeling hyper-curmudgeonly, mostly you will find yourself howling with helpless laughter.