On Wednesday it was 5 years to the day that I had a lunch with a chap called Owen who I had been chatting with on OUT IN THE UK for a while. 1825 days later and we are still chatting!!

To celebrate we went to see the first production of a new regime at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. It will now become a producing theatre with an artistic director who changes every year. This is a brave move bearing in mind the constant reports of the dearth and unpopularity of non-musicals in the West End. Jonathan Kent has been appointed the first artistic director and his choice for the launch production is William Wycherley's sex comedy from 1675 THE COUNTRY WIFE

I had never seen the play before but knew of it's reputation for being one of the more bawdy Restoration comedies - in fact after being performed regularly for 80 years it suddenly fell out of favour and was banned for 171 years! However a sanitised version had been written by David Garrick and this was performed even into the 1900s. While not shocking to audiences anymore it's outrageousness is certainly surprising.

Horner (Toby Stephens) a London libertine starts a rumour that his visit to Paris has left him impotent. A brilliant ruse to get into the drawing-rooms, among other things, of wives with their husbands sympathtically holding the door open for him. Needless to say this sets the tomcat among the plump-breasted pigeons while tying in two other plotlines.

Horner hears that his friend Pinchwife (David Haig) has sneaked his new bride Margery (Fiona Glascott) into his townhouse so his randy friends won't get to see her. However Horner spots them at a theatre and likes what he sees and when Margery learns this she starts champing at the bit to be allowed out. This set's Pinchwife into a jealous rage and goes to outrageous lengths to keep her to himself. Meanwhile Horner's friend Harcourt (John Hopkins) has set his cap at Pinchwife's sister Alithia (Elisabeth Dermot Walsh) despite the fact she is set to marry the borish fop Sparkish (Jo Stone-Fewings).

The production got off to a bad start with a 20 minute delay due to problems with the sound (aka scenery change music) and there was a definate feeling of the audiences goodwill deflating by the minute. The play then started and it seemed to be pitched at too high a level with Toby Stephens playing Horner like Rik Mayall as his 'Flash' character from "Blackadder". Whether this was because the cast were trying too hard to win the audience over I'm not sure but there didn't seem to be much subtlety on stage. On the whole I enjoyed it and laughed a lot but it would be nice to see the cast being allowed to trust the material more - it wouldn't be around for 300 years if it didn't have it's strengths.

David Haig - one of my favourite stage actors - was called on to do his harassed sexually compromised shtick but damn he does it sublimely! His increasing mania was a joy to watch - his frantic running about the stage trying to find where Horner had spirited Margery while in Vauxhall Gardens was topped by him appearing in the stalls trying to find her there. He even turns to the audience at one point and says in desperation "What would you do??" Sadly he was flying solo as Fiona Glascott is totally charmless as Margery, screeching her way through her lines.

The other major asset to the production was Patricia Hodge as Lady Fidget, the prime recipient of Horner's non-poxed affections. As usual her disdainful delivery and excellent comedy timing made her every appearance totally on the money. She triumphed in the scene where she stumbles out of Horner's bedroom to find her husband waiting outside and in a double-entendre heavy conversation describes how wonderful his china collection is. There was good support to from John Hopkins, Elisabeth Dermot Walsh and Jo Stone-Fewings, one of whose lines has given me a new favourite word. 'tis true, I did de-pish myself laughing. The design is quite fun by Paul Brown cleverly mixing 17th Century swagger coats with black jeans for the men and couture evening dresses with swags of materials as skirts for the women.

It will be interesting to see how audiences take to this West End experiment, THE COUNTRY WIFE is set to run for three months and will be followed by another intriguing choice, Edward Bond's THE SEA which is hardly the most obvious Haymarket fare. Bets are well and truly hedged though with a new musical from Boublil and Schoenberg as the final production, a bizarre-sounding update of CAMILLE to WWII Paris. Think I'll miss that.