Christopher Fry sub-titled his 1950 translation of Anouilh's play "a charade with music". In that sense, it is everything the modern theatre supposedly detests: light, elegant, studied, artificial. Yet Sean Mathias's fine revival not only recaptures a vanished theatrical age but reminds us there is ironic substance to this apparent gossamer trifle.
The setting is the winter garden of a French country house where a ball is to be staged; and, as so often in Anouilh's plays, a female innocent is thrust into a society of wealthy worldlings.
In this case she is Isabelle, an impoverished dancer, who arrives at the invitation of the cynical Hugo, to attract the attention of his twin brother, Frederic, and save him from a potentially disastrous marriage. What follows is as complex as any Restoration comedy but one that builds leads to a harmonious conclusion symbolised by glittering fireworks.
Underneath Anouilh's pyrotechnics, however, I detect the same kind of irony you find in Renoir's The Rules of the Game or Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night. Observing Isabelle dancing, the local chatelaine, Mme Desmortes, describes her as "the only woman who is being herself".
Hired to play a role, Isabelle goes on to expose the falsity of the world around her. This reaches a point of faint absurdity when she provokes a melancholy millionaire into seeking to shed his riches. But it also leads to a powerfully impassioned speech by Hugo in which he claims the Pygmalion-like trick he has engineered exposes the pretence of distinction, breeding and poise. The play may be a charade; but it is one edged with mordant satire.
Rightly, however, Mathias's production, shifted from the belle epoque to the world of Dior and Balmain gowns, highlights the glamorous game playing JJ Feild, making his West End debut in the twin roles of Hugo and Frederic, is adept at exposing the contrast between the heartless and kindly brothers. Fiona Button as Isabelle also hints at the toughness underneath her supposed innocence and there is a wealth of rich support. Angela Thorne radiates aristocratic hauteur as the chatelaine, Belinda Lang turns Isabelle's working-class mother into an unstoppable chatterbox, and Peter Eyre as the butler glides through the action like a Gallic Jeeves. This may be an unfashionable kind of theatre but it confirms Anouilh was a master theatrical magician.
· Until May 24. Box office: 0870 060 6631.