Patrick Marber is not the first person to give Molière's comedy a makeover. Only two years ago Neil Bartlett transposed the action to a belle-époque hotel. But, while Marber's entertaining version offers a far more radical rewrite, it lacks the subversiveness of Molière's original.
Marber's hero, DJ, is a fantastically priapic aristo, cutting a swath through modern Soho. He ditches Elvira, a worthy foreign aid worker, at the first opportunity and lives up to the description of him by his sidekick, Stan, as "Satan in a suit from Savile Row". The hero's louche escapades are often hilarious: one scene in which he tries to seduce a piece of posh totty while being enthusiastically fellated by his latest pick-up neatly matches the moment in Molière where Don Juan offers marriage to two women at once. Marber also deftly weaves Elvira's vengeful Irish brothers into the action, so they become DJ's ultimate nemesis.
But where is the danger in all this? Someone describes DJ as "a nihilist posing as a libertine": quite a trendy thing to be in an age that has jettisoned religious sanctions. Even the statue of the Commander, although brilliantly animated, is no longer a source of eternal damnation, but DJ's alter ego in the rapacious shape of Charles II.
Given the Soho setting and the uncanny resemblance of Rhys Ifans's DJ to a young Peter O'Toole, there are times when the play comes across as a buccaneering version of Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell. But Ifans carries off the part with stylish insolence. And Stephen Wight as his disapproving but envious dogsbody, and David Ryall as his censorious father, are impeccable.
Michael Grandage's production and Christopher Oram's design also capture Soho's mixture of swagger and seediness with dazzling fluidity: something as simple as the gnome-shaped drinks-stools in a swank hotel convey exactly the right raffish naffness. Whizzing along for 90 minutes, the evening offers a rutting rake's modern progress. But, while I was beguiled, I never felt that frisson of fear you get from Molière, where the transgressive hero is consumed by the flames of hell.
· Until February 10. Box Office: 0870 060 6624
