Love over a roly-poly pudding

There's more than enough going on in this romantic comedy set against the backdrop of the Crimean War. TW Robertson - a mid-Victorian playwright who paved the way for Bernard Shaw - marshals a raft of major and minor characters, moving them from Austen-ish love scenes in drawing rooms to a muddy hut at the front line of the Anglo-Russian conflict, where 'petticoats seem like a dream'. That is, until a flock of ladies descend on the weary soldiers.

A squabbling married couple provide a counterpoint to young lovers. Sir Alexander Shendryn (Christopher Gilling) can control a regiment but not a wife who believes he is faithless. Meanwhile his ward Blanche (Emily Dobbs), an heiress, is sweet on her cousin, a poor, Scottish cadet who's deemed an unsuitable match. And his wife's tart-tongued companion (Emilie Patry) is engaged in a war of words with Robert Irons's stinking rich and engagingly flippant brewer.

The playwright handles his characters with a mixture of empathy and impatience, revealing discontent beneath the surface of affluent society.

Phoebe Barran's revival is stuffed with satisfying performances and, while the sugar-coated ending is hardly a surprise, a declaration of love over a roly-poly pudding supplies a real, giddy tingle.

Ours
Finborough Theatre
Finborough Road, SW10 9ED