The government is facing calls for a new anti-corruption law that will allow MPs to be prosecuted for bribery. It comes just over 100 years too late to halt the career of Sir Robert Chiltern, the public figure at the heart of Oscar Wilde's drama, whose meteoric rise has been financed by trading in government secrets.
An Ideal Husband is Wilde's most earnest social satire. Though the aphorisms glitter as brightly as the costume jewellery on display, the point of the wit is to expose political society as a snake pit of naked self-interest.
The most deadly viper is the venomous Mrs Cheveley, who attempts to poison the bond of trust between Chiltern and his naively adoring wife. Joanna Riding gives us Iago in Victorian couture: a woman whose chief pleasure is destroying the contentment of others.
Simon Robson is both impressively commanding and inescapably culpable as Sir Robert, while Rae Hendrie looks utterly shocked to witness her husband's pedestal crumbling to dust. Their strongest ally is the laconic narcissist Lord Goring, whose admission that "to love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance" suggests he was the character closest to Wilde's own heart.
Milo Twomey captures Goring's cynicism, but also his compassion, though it is difficult to negotiate the plum dialogue without appearing to speak in a string of quotations.
It is the business of a good Wilde production to look conspicuously expensive, and Simon Higlett's costume designs do not disappoint. Braham Murray's admirable production suggests that while fashions change, naked greed will never go out of style.
· Until January 26. Box office: 0161-833 9833.
