Ring Round the Moon

Published Wednesday 20 February 2008 at 12:40 by John Thaxter

This is only the second major West End revival of Anouilh’s elegant comedy since 1950, when Peter Brook first staged Christopher Fry’s enchanting translation of his modern Cinderella charade.

With more than a dozen named roles, its cast demands have been a deterrent. But innovative producer Karl Sydow fields a starry line-up that includes Angela Thorne as the aristocratic hostess in a wheelchair, Joanna David as her devoted companion, Belinda Lang playing the comic chatterbox mother to Fiona Button’s Isabelle in the Cinderella role, while Peter Eyre is superbly suave as the butler Joshua keeping a watchful eye on the night’s events.

Director Sean Mathias and his designer Colin Richmond set the play in the early fifties, with glamorous Dior ball gowns and stylish footwear for the women, formal elegance for the men, and a glazed Winter Garden annexed to the chateau, still a little shabby after the ravages of the recent occupation.

There are two Prince Charmings in the person of J J Feild, making his London stage debut as both the shy, diffident Frederic and his twin brother, the brash Hugo, mainly differentiated by Hugo’s high-speed scatter-gun delivery and a tendency to skid when making an entrance.

Leigh Lawson as the Jewish financier Messerschmann has two glorious moments, first with Elizabeth Dermot Walsh as his haughty daughter Diana, a poor little rich girl with a broken heart, and his pivotal scene with Button’s Isabelle as he attempts to buy-off Diana’s rival, culminating in a snowstorm of torn-up banknotes.

Emily Bruni and Andrew Hall offer irresistible comedy as adulterous lovers who continue their erotic tango in the Winter Garden as she sheds jewellery with wild abandon, while John Ramm of National Theatre of Brent fame plays the panicky Romainville watching his devious plans go awry.

Magical comedy and an evening to treasure.