By Richard Brinsley Sheridan, with Patricia Routledge, Geoffrey Palmer, Michael Maloney and Sarah Crowe.

1775: the fashionable world descends on Bath, to take the waters and embroil themselves in a little romantic intrigue in this classic English comedy.

I hope you reprehend my reasons for bringing this superlunary drama to your attestation. [Enough of the malodorous malapropisms, Ed.] Patricia Routledge is at the height of her comedy powers as Mrs Malaprop in this production of Sheridan's five-act satire on the pretensions and sentimentalism of 18th-century fashionable society. Polite smiles are the order of the day in 1775 Bath, but beneath the good manners are seething jealousies, messy romantic tangles and a cast of characters who, with the exception of the innocent Julia (Lucy Whybrow), are masters and mistresses of artifice and lies. Geoffrey Palmer makes for a great hot-tempered father, sent into spitting fits by such subjects as the over-education of women, and Michael Maloney turns in a fine performance as his son, Jack, who is more mischievous than malevolent in his own schemes to win the woman he loves. But star of the show is Routledge: not surprising really since she gets the beast of all Sheridan's lions. [I said that's enough, Ed].