Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was a remarkable woman. This early 18th-century aristocrat was a renowned wit and letter writer, a confidante and eventually an enemy of Alexander Pope, and - after living in Turkey - was responsible for introducing the idea of inoculation into this country 80 years before Edward Jenner developed his smallpox vaccine. Gender and social position conspired to ensure that none of this made her popular, and neither did her personal behaviour - in middle age, she eloped to Italy with a man half her age. Apparently her dying words were: "It has all been very interesting."
I would like to have met Lady Mary, but I am less happy to have met her play. The best you can say about it is that it is charming and playful although, unlike Lady Mary, really not at all interesting. It draws heavily on Marivaux's The Game of Love and Chance, but has none of that drama's pointed wit or chilly nastiness as it tells how love finds a way, as Belinda sets out to ensure her suitor Gaymore wants her for herself and not her money. When he comes to pay court, she swaps places with her maid. Unknown to this pair, Gaymore and his servant have done exactly the same.
The resulting confusion is reasonably lively and totally predictable, a kind of 18th-century theatrical version of the modern chick flick, where the happy ever after ending is never in doubt. In its own time, the play may have seemed a radical call for love matches over arranged marriages; in our era, it simply looks like an old-fashioned comedy that aims to sparkle but often just simpers.
· Until November 8. Box office: 020-8940 3633.
