A Chorus of Disapproval, Harold Pinter Theatre, review If there is such a thing as an afterlife, then I suspect that Harold Pinter might be having one of his notorious temper tantrums, and giving the heavenly host a tremendous ear bashing. Last year the former Comedy Theatre was renamed after him. But it hasn't presented any of his plays and seems to have become the fiefdom of Alan Ayckbourn. This year it staged a cracking revival of one of the Scarborough master's funniest and darkest plays, Absent Friends, and now it is the turn of Trevor Nunn to direct A Chorus of Disapproval. I still have vivid memories of the National Theatre's 1985 production of this comedy about an amateur operatic society's production of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera which starred Michael Gambon and the late Bob Peck. Good though it often is, Nunn's somewhat ponderous staging doesn't quite match it. In great Ayckbourn shows there is always at least one scene when I find myself physically helpless with laughter but this time, though I laughed a lot, there was no such moment of transcendent comic bliss. It is impossible not to admire Ayckbourn's ingenuity, in which Gay's story of the dashing highwayman Macheath, who is romantically entangled with both Polly Peachum and Lucy Lockit, is mirrored in the private lives of the amateur thesps playing these roles. As an account of theatrical mishaps and illicit backstage relationships, however, the play isn't in the same comic league as Michael Frayn's Noises Off, and Nunn's production often lacks the required vim and lightness of touch. I also wish Ayckbourn had dug deeper into his characters, too many of which - from the no-nonsense northerner to the bottle-blonde sex siren - are little more than stock types. Nevertheless there are some standout performances. Rob Brydon is both funny and touching as the harassed, ostentatiously Welsh director for whom am-drams are an escape from a sexless marriage. There's a deliciously bossy bumptiousness about him, not least when he auditions a new recruit and completely takes over the singing himself - needless to say in Welsh. But Brydon is also poignant when he describes his troubled marriage, a confession that, in a typical Ayckbourn twist, is broadcast to the entire company over the theatre Tannoy. Nigel Harman is also in fine form as the play's unlikely lothario, Guy, a painfully shy and recently widowed man who, through a series of disasters in the company rises from the tiny role of Crook-Fingered Jack to the swashbuckling Macheath. Harman superbly captures the character's hand-wringing diffidence and glassy smile of embarrassment, while his illicit relationship with the director's wife, played with a lovely vulnerability by Ashley Jensen, is beautifully caught. Stereotyped though her role is, Daisy Beaumont also shines as the predatorily sexual Fay who hosts "swingers" parties with her vile husband. The wires-crossed conversation in which she talks about sex, and Harman thinks she is talking about food is classic Ayckbourn - and by some distance the funniest moment in the show.