Habeas Corpus review: A hilarious, knockout revival of Alan Bennett’s comedy

Jasper Britton pokes his head through the wafty front curtain, which is lit in a bilious green. He cocks an eyebrow. Even his stethoscope seems to dangle louchely. He is playing Dr Wicksteed, the leading character in Habeas Corpus, Alan Bennett’s brilliantly funny farce from 1973. This is now brought back to life in a hilarious, knockout revival by Patrick Marber at the Menier Chocolate Factory.

Britton – who is inspired casting – gestures with practised disdain at a man positioned offstage. “Look at him. Just look at the look on that face. Do you know what that means? He wants me to tell him he is not going to die. ‘You’re not going to die.’ He is going to die.”

The proceedings are predicated on the gap between fiction and reality. The fiction is that professionals know how to keep their hands to themselves; the reality is that even the president of the British Medical Association can use this as a convenient cover when roused to priapism by lust.

Even, or especially? There’s the rub. Bennett redoubles the reprehensible hilarity by equipping the medics with a fitter of false breasts, a lower-rung professional who also (more innocently) straddles the line between anaphrodisiac professional duty and unofficial bouts of tumescence.

Hold on a minute. The mix-up over the busts (fuller-size and flat) is somehow innocent in its inspired silliness. But, post-#MeToo, shouldn’t we be beyond comedy that depends on comic stereotypes – such as the phobic, nerdy Wicksteed son (the superb Thomas Josling), who needs to believe that he is terminally ill until he bumps into the pregnant dolly bird (Katie Bernstein), who is keen to exploit his condition in the interests of early lucrative widowhood?

I am not making light of this problem. The question is more what the nature of the problem is perceived to be. Habeas Corpus (1973) is weirdly predictive of preoccupations that Bennett developed throughout a career of comic genius: from Kafka’s Dick (size does matter; it can spawn an industry of suspect biography-writing) to his last play Allelujah!, an oddly joyous account of how the “bed-blocker” problem in a beleaguered NHS is countered by some creative medical malpractice.

In the early years of the absolutely overdue #MeToo movement, it was sometimes easy to overlook that it was against the abuse of power by men over women, not against sex in general. There is a kind of porn available now that is designed by women for women. How far does a sex farce such as Habeas Corpus face the tricky challenge of mutual respect in touch between the sexes?

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This revival is deeply timely in a good way. Bennett has always been ahead of the curve in that his female characters tend to be wiser, cleverer and more honest than the men. As with a piece of music, farce depends on timing. Here Ria Jones tips a wonderful Welsh wink as Mrs Swabb the cleaner. She is the stereotypical “woman what does” – and who knows what she knows? Caroline Langrishe is spot-on as Lady Rumpers, the white settler who has been in Addis Ababa and who officiates over the blissful pastiche of the last act of The Importance of Being Earnest.

Jasper Britton is unimprovable as Wicksteed. The character thinks he could out-finesse anyone. But the brilliant, disturbing final image is of him engaged in a frantic dance on the spot and having a heart attack. In Freudian terms, Thanatos wins out over Eros.

Am I right in thinking that men have a tendency to conk out while “on the job”, doctor?