When the Liverpool Playhouse opened in 1911, actors by the names of Baliol Holloway and F Pennington Gush appeared in works by popular authors of the day, including Hubert Henry Davies.
Messrs Holloway and Gush are long gone, but Davies is making a comeback after director Gemma Bodinetz discovered that this dusty curio, originally entitled The Mollusc, was the surprise hit of 1912.
Davies's play has all the hallmarks of standard, Edwardian fare - French windows, cigars, a couch, plus an enervated heroine who does an inordinate amount of swooning. The supine Mrs Baxter is diagnosed by her bumptious brother Tom as suffering from molluscry, differentiated from bone idleness in that the lazy are washed around with the tide, whereas "it's amazing the amount of force a mollusc will use to do nothing".
The thrust of the drama is in the Baxter household's repeated efforts to winkle the invalid from her shell. You could make a case that Davies sides with Chekhov and Beckett in this study of human inertia; yet the chief feature of Bodinetz's candyfloss-coloured production is that it is blissfully funny.
How far this is due to the innate comedic quality of Davies's script, or the cast's evident enjoyment in sending it up, is a moot point. But Tessa Churchard turns in a central performance of spectacular indolence, delivered in the listless drawl of a woman who can scarcely be bothered to draw breath.
There's fine work also from Greg Hicks as the exasperated brother, Colin Tierney as the chinless husband and Kellie Bright as the put-upon governess. Unlikely as it seems, the surprise hit of 1912 could also be the surprise hit of 2006.
· Until June 3. Box office: 0151-709 4776
