Kean, Sartre's adaptation of Dumas' portrait of the famous Regency actor, is not a play which is performed too often.

There could be many reasons for this - there was a barnstorming portrayal of Kean by Anthony Hopkins on TV that might well count as the definitive version, or there could be a resistance to intellectual French authors.

But having seen this production, I believe that the more realistic view is that directors might actually have read it and realised that this was a pretty awful idea.

Who knows what induced a distinguished director such as Adrian Noble to revive this?

The central theme - that actors find it hard to distinguish between reality and fiction and are forced to live lies nightly - might have sounded profound after a couple of bottles of vin rouge at Les Deux Magots, but it sounds more like the sort of thing a couple of sixth-formers would come up with after a night with a multi-pack of cider.

Noble adds to the confusion by transposing the play from the early 19th century to what appears to be the Thirties.

It's not at all clear why he's done this - it adds nothing to the play and renders two aspects of the plot nonsensical.

The first, the idea that as an actor Kean is some sort of social inferior, makes no sense at all - in that period, actors were as lionised as they are today.

But even more preposterously, the plot hinges on an insult to the Prince of Wales, which leaves Kean facing a treason charge - realistic in the Hanoverian court but completely anachronistic in the Thirties. After all, the Prince in this case would have been the future Edward VIII, and making fun of him was virtually a national sport.

For all its faults, the play is a marvellous vehicle for an actor: it offers the chance to play different roles, attempt a multitude of accents and ham it up deliberately.

Anthony Sher seizes the chance with gusto and is always compelling.

His is a bravura performance, which is neither matched by the direction nor by the awful, truly awful, text.