THE MAGISTRATE National Theatre/Olivier

A widow lies about her age and passes off her 19-year-old son as a 14-year-old with disastrous results for her husband and herself. Arthur Wing Pinero’s farces were once all the rage. His satires on bourgeois morality and hypocrisy were as popular in England as Georges Feydeau’s were in France, though, inevitably, since Victorian theatregoers were easily shocked, his farces were not nearly so risqué. The Magistrate, premiered in 1885, was considered his best so far; but, as Michael Hordern, Alistair Sim, John Mills, Nigel Hawthorne, Ian Richardson and now John Lithgow found out, apart from a long soliloquy, describing a flight from the police, the play is not that funny and it’s hard work getting laughs. Timothy Sheader’s revival is hampered by skew-whiff sets, silly wigs and the introduction of pastiche Gilbert and Sullivan songs. It would, surely, have been more rewarding to revive one of Pinero’s serious dramas, such as His House in Order or, if a farce were thought more appropriate for the festive season, why not celebrate the 80th birthday of the greatest living British farceur, Ray Cooney, with a revival of one of his plays?