David Pountney's staging of Purcell's semi-opera The Fairy Queen was considered controversial seven years ago. It is anyone's guess why, unless it was because of a minor plot line involving a shambling, middle-aged man who gets to fall in love and "marry" a clean-cut young lad. You won't find more men in drag on any stage outside Madame JoJo's, but there's nothing shocking, nothing too near the cutting-edge - just an enjoyable evening of slightly surreal pantomime.
The musical masques that make up The Fairy Queen originally embellished a bowdlerized version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, and it is very much a dream world that we're in here. We start in a fairy palace, then move to an office boardroom, an enchanted wood and, bizarrely, to a theme-park Chinese wedding-land, complete with three little maids from school (more men in drag) and lots of copies of the Little Red Book. Why? Don't ask - if you get too hung up on logic you won't enjoy the show.
This revival, staged by Quinny Sacks and Elaine Tyler-Hall, seems dynamically well prepared. The dance passages, almost as substantial as the vocal ones, are slickly performed. The orchestra play with spirit under Paul Daniel and, while the strings can be a little rough around the edges in their baroque-style playing, there are stalwart contributions from the continuo instruments. Tom Randle returns to ham deliciously as a cartoon-villain Oberon, while three sopranos - Gail Pearson, Carolyn Sampson and Mary Nelson - stand out in supporting roles. Titania's encouragement of the lovers followed by her own aria of despair - in the mould of Dido's "When I am laid in earth" - is the most substantial sincere episode of the evening, and it is beautifully sung by Joan Rodgers.
Apart from this, Pountney's show can seem a relentless stream of ideas on how to dolly-up otherwise po-faced baroque arias. You have to hand it to him, though - he cheerily admits in his programme note that The Fairy Queen has no "apparent dramatic logic, development of character or other ponderous rationale", but goes on to prove that those things are not essential to a decent evening's theatre - provided that you're willing to leave your brain in the cloakroom, and just be entertained.
· In rep until July 5. Box office: 020-7632 8300.
