Stage review: London Assurance, Olivier

Lordy, lord, what a joyous treat the Olivier has on offer.

Truth be told, I didn't think I had the energy for two hours 40 of hand-me-down Restoration comedy with the usual round of turn-on-a-sixpence affairs, mistaken identities and off-the-shelf archetypes.

You could put the plot down on a postcard - cosmopolitan father and reckless indebted son dispatched to the bucolic countryside where, through a mangled mix-up, they love indiscriminately and in a manner likely to trigger the greatest number of confusions.

But there's an alchemy here. There's an energy and affection and relish on the stage that is contagious.

It's the sort of production where you leave the theatre a bosom buddy with the stranger next door because you're imbued with a renewed affection for humanity.

It's like the freezer's broken at the ice cream factory, such is the quick and unceasing succession of treats.

There is Simon Russell Beale, as Sir Harcourt Courtly, a preening, plump, pretentious dandy, 57 but claiming only 39. He gurns like Les Dawson and yelps with camp outrage. He is a bull in ballet shoes cursed by bunions, every contortion of gut and gait a calculated dag at the funny bone.

We have cigar-chomping, hard-drinking, fast-talking Fiona Shaw as Lady Gay Spanker more manly than Sir Harcourt could ever be. Tally-ho and game for a laugh she encourages Sir Harcourt's affections to save 18-year-old Grace the ordeal of a marriage to the primping buffoon.

We have circling entourage of impeccable support with blunderbusses packed with bluster - Mark Addy as bluff countryman Max Harkaway, Paul Ready as Hugh Grant-a-like Charles Courtly, Nick Sampson as snide valet Cool, Matt Cross as Mr Dazzle, the mischief maker, and Michelle Terry as earthy Grace, the object of two men's affections.

And, my oh my, we have yet to enjoy the unassuming comedy cameo offered by Richard Briers as bumbling Dolly Spanker who occasionally lifts himself from an encroaching slumber to rumble and roar into life like a hand-cranked Rolls on a cold morning.

Irish stage genius Dion Boucicault, 21 at the time of writing the work in 1841, may have bought the plot contrivances wholesale from a man on a street corner but a combination of Nicholas Hytner's sprightly direction, some modern jibes (inserted by Richard Bean), some knowing nods to the plot's essential silliness and an ensemble who tuck into their clownish setpieces like hungry farmboys at a suckling pig make this the funniest and finest night in London.

Election, recession, debt and chaos? This piece of uproarious escapism is the perfect antidote and the surest guarantee of a laugh this side of a manifesto launch.

– From April 2010