This is the sheerest joy. I hope that in all this ghastly seasonal panic, nobody will put off if I say that this is an ideal Christmas treat for the West End: a shrewd and warm-hearted production of a shrewd and warm-hearted comedy (1766) by David Garrick and his friend and sparring partner George Colman the Elder. The subject, as so often in 18th-century comedy, is love and money: how to cling on to the former if you have not much of the latter.
    Lovewell (Jonathan Cullen), the younger manager of the rich City businessman, Mr Sterling (Christopher Benjamin), has secretly married Sterling's younger daughter Fanny (Elizabeth Chadwick). Her elder sister is about to marry one Sir John Melvil; and Lovewell's idea is that Melvil's uncle, the old and grand Lord Ogleby, to whom he, Lovewell, is distantly related, might bring his wealth and influence to bear on Mr Sterling to accept the marriage.
    Simon Chandler is Melvil, a pale, mean-mouthed little ferret, who throws a spanner in the works by suddenly falling for Fanny and ditching the elder sister. Miss Sterling (Deborah Findlay) takes this in very bad part indeed: the composure of the spoilt, smug snob, for whom a good address clearly has an erotic appeal, is replaced by the indignant shrieks of the snubbed harpy. Her ally is her aunt, Mrs Heidelberg, whom Susan Engel plays as a grand she-dragon of respectability, upright and ferocious, and deploying her frightful vowel sounds as lethal missiles which destroy everything on impact. Engel and Findlay play duets of deadly, ravenous gentility which are the highlights of the evening.
    Garrick, who was no mean businessman himself, casts a beady glance at the ruthless ambition of the City parvenu doing battle with the in-born greed of the aristocracy; but he steers the play amiably towards the inevitable happy ending. His instrument is Lord Ogleby, who gets a ruthlessly observant but deeply generous performance from Nigel Hawthorne: a smug, watchful odld tortoise, aile but passionately hypochondriac, imperious but kindhearted. This is a jewel of a performance, lovingly crafted and irresistably appealing. Hawthorne also directs the play, making his West End debut with skill, pace and elegant invention - though he should have avoided the occasional touch of the chocolate boxes. I hope he will continue acting in his spare time.