“Too many notes” the Emperor reputedly said to Mozart; “too many words” one might well say to James Saunders, whose adaptation of Ronald Harwood’s novel is the opening production in Michael Attenborough’s tenure of this pleasant playhouse. There are so many words, most of them given to Frank Finlay as Hugo, once a dancer now a mental home patient, that one listens to their sound as though in a foreign language and has no time to understand their meaning.

It is all ingeniously set: Joe Vanek with trompe d’oeil lighting by Robert Muller, reasonably well costumed and very nicely cast, Susan Penhaligon plays Niobe, the girl caught between nightmares, and Hugo’s confederates are Renee Asherson as Nora and Robert Flemyng as Wassler. Finlay cannot help but dominate, even though not for a moment did I believe that this Irvingesque poseur had ever stepped out as a danseur noble. Frank Wylie is the next most eye-riveting player as Dr Lipschitz, the psychiatrist with his own problems. The large cast also includes Elizabeth Bennett as the doctor in charge, Barbara Atkinson as Niobe’s mother, John Arthur and Howard Lew Lewis as the warring detectives, Alfred Hoffman as the head of the establishment and Barry McCarthy as the sad little priest.

When reading the novel one can, of course, take it at one’s own pace. When attending the play, one is at the mercy of the dramatist’s own course and that is likely to leave one breathless and baffled.