At a time when the English classic tradition (aside from Shakespeare) is in danger of disappearing, it is cheering to find a revival of this odd, inventive comedy. Written in 1717 by John Gay, with a little help from Pope and Arbuthnot, it was briefly revived by the RSC in 1996 and now comes back in a boisterous fringe production that is stronger on action than language.
Gay's basic plot is a familiar one: old man marries young bride and is terrified of being cuckolded. The delight, however, lies in the detail. The old husband, Dr Fossile, is stuffed with arcane learning. His niece, who "instead of puddings makes pastorals", comes up with a ludicrous tragedy about the deluge that is instantly squashed by an overweening dramatic critic. And Fossile's young bride is hotly pursued by rival lovers who eventually appear disguised as an Egyptian mummy and an erectile alligator.
The play, in short, is a mixture of 18th-century satire and Ray Cooney-style farce. But Blanche McIntyre's production seems far happier with the latter than the former. It gets maximum laughs out of the comic disguises and the moment where the bride, forced to conceal a lover under her voluminous petticoats, experiences a series of orgasmic thrills. I just wish more attention was paid to the actual words. Steven Blake makes a suitably fusspot Fossile, but he misses the Jonsonian delight in abstruse scholarship and the fact that even his niece's creativity is put down to "a procidence of the pineal gland". Rebecca McKinnis exudes randy high-spiritedness as his cheating bride, Dan Ford as her chief suitor turns up to good effect as a Polish medico, and Jonathan Peck plays almost everything else, from a bombastic critic to a mutinous servant. It is all very jolly, but it would be even funnier if its visual ingenuity were matched by vocal incisiveness.
· Until April 5. Box office: 020-7261 9876.