It is a car and not a carriage that awaits the formidable Lady Bracknell during her teatime call at the Half Moon Street flat of her nephew Algernon Moncrieff, writes Chris Gray.

During her interrogation there of Algy's pal John Worthing, suitor for the hand of her daughter Gwendolen, we find his income is up from 8,000 a year to a whopping half million.

And unless my ears deceived me the importunate Mr W is now New Labour rather than the Liberal Unionist specified in Oscar Wilde's text. This, of course, makes Lady Bracknell's remark, "Oh, they count as Tories", no less appropriate and certainly more funny.

Mind you, I could have been mistaken. Matters move so fast, words are sometimes so gabbled, in this modern-day version of the comedy classic staged to mark the centenary of its writer's death that some lines, including a number of the funnier ones, are lost. Most survive to delight, however, in a thoroughly enjoyable production whose tone is set in the appealing performance of Jess Brooks as Cecily, Worthing's winsome ward. Her love scene with Algy (Chris Clothier) beneath the huge cotton wool clouds of the Manor garden (good work, designer Delia Peel) is a highlight of the production.

Alas, Jess shares with other student performers (including Ed McGown, an otherwise excellent Worthing) a difficulty over the vowel sound in words like 'town'. Director Simon Woods should have them all reciting "How now brown cow".

No trouble over this from Magdalen English fellow Susan Hitch's Lady B (the famous 'handbag' line is cleverly delivered with a loud laugh), Nicole Scott as Gwendolen, or Douglas Murray as the doddering Canon Chasuble (though his devoted Miss Prism is altogether too alluring, as portrayed by Clare Finnegan).