Lying fully shod on, first the chaise longue and then the breakfast table, the young students of French in this production of French Without Tears by Alan Strachan seem supremely unaware that they are outside their own homes, let alone learning another language in a foreign country. No, that is not quite fair, Peter Woodward, playing the Hon. Alan Howard, has managed to pick up an excellent command of French from somewhere (not, one would have thought from his professor in this production Hugh Hastings as Monsieur Maingot). Otherwise, however, the standard of learning portrayed is perfectly consistent with Terence Rattigan’s requirement that some, at least, of the pupils should be unable to discern whether any given French lesson is on the subject of the Near East or of the Franco-Prussian War. Most of them might just as well be back in Blighty for all the good they are doing themselves in France, except, of course, that the unswerving resistance of Brian (exquisitely played by Jeremy Sinden) to the idea of absorbing any little nuance of French language or life would not show up anything like as well against a British background.

For humour, Sinden has Peter Woodward and Clive Francis (as Lt. Commander Rogers) as his most able confederates and Woodward also declines most plausibly into almost tragic despair when his own vulnerability to Jane Booker, as the femme fatale Diana Lake, seems to be about to be tested. Christine McKenna makes a pretty picture of at least partial common-sense as Jacqueline Maingot. Alan Strachan’s production shows an assured touch both with the big moments of comedy and the more intimate moments of pathos.