So what a relief and joy it was to discover that this 1950s comedy is nothing less than a joyous experience for both the audience, and it seemed the actors too. Originally written in 1947 by French playwright and film director Jean Anouilh, the piece was later translated by Christopher Fry for the English stage.

This is at heart a French farce with English accents combined with a dash of Shakespearean Tomfoolery. It’s Jeeves and Wooster - a world of high society, daffy men, vampy women, Christian Dior fashions and the kind of debonair men with a taste for caddish behaviour in expensively cut suits.

Into this melting pot of social privilege are three couples who can’t quite work out who they should love. There’s a handsome set of twins, an impressionable young gal from the lower classes and a wheelchair bound elderly matriarch who can render whiplash just with her acidic tongue! It’s a combination of the perfect ingredients for a witty and scintillating theatrical experience – and one relished by the actors who ham the roles to high-heaven.

The kernel of the plot is quite simple, but it’s the farcical events that spring from a devious plan that means the audience has to keep on its toes. Hugo and Frederic are identical twins (brilliantly played by handsome JJ Field), but whereas Hugo is a heartless playboy, his younger doppelganger is a caring, hopeless romantic.

Knowing that the more wimpish sibling is intended to marry the scary and domineering Diana (Elisabeth Dermot Walsh), Hugo sets out to distract Fred with the arrival of Isabelle (Fiona Button) a pretty but unassuming young dancer who is chaperoned by her red haired harridan of a mother, hilariously played by Belinda Lang. The actress is virtually unrecognisable from her 2.4 Children sitcom days back in the 90s and here brings the house down with her fantastically annoying but strangely endearing performance as a totally self-absorbed fruitcake.

Director Sean Mathias has very wisely transported the setting to the mid 1950s – the last era of grand sartorial style and formality in dress. The look and feel is Brideshead Revisited meets Breakfast At Tiffany’s with a hint of High Society and it really makes you pine for a time when folks dressed up to the nines, rather than shuffling out in a pair of arse exposing hipsters and mangy trainers.

JJ Field defies the laws of natural physics by appearing as his twin brother even as soon as the other one has left the stage. The young actor is a particularly mesmerising performer, whose Jude Law looks and onstage presence is perfect for this sophisticated comedy of manners. A lesser actor could easily leave this fast paced show steering towards the orchestra pit.

Besides the campery there are some serious points to be made about social class, money and elitism, but the emphasis here is on fun, charm, scintillating dialogue and enjoying Angela Thorne’s prickly matriarch who doesn’t suffer fools gladly.

The actors quite rightly take hold of this vintage gem and revel in the chance to play big, no better than when socialite Lady India (Emily Bruni) performs an hilarious spectacle of Come Dancing style histrionics as she fantasises about the ‘romantic’ notion of being poor.

If only those high rise, council block tenants in EC1 knew how exotic their lifestyles really were!

Ring Round The Moon, by Jean Anouilh adapted by Christopher Fry
Playhouse Theatre
Northumberland Avenue
WC2N 5DE
0870 060 6631

19 February-24 May 2008

Interested in queer drama? Then get Out on the Stage: Lesbian and Gay Theatre in the Twentieth Century online and save some money to out towards Something for the Boys: Musical Theatre and Gay Culture, Forbidden Acts: Pioneering Gay & Lesbian Plays of the 20th Century and The Queer Encyclopedia of Music, Dance & Musical Theatre.