BROTHERS in arts Tim and Christopher Luscombe have provided York Theatre Royal with the peachiest shows of an erratic summer

season.

Tim's rollicking, effervescent account of Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey was the repertory highlight in May and June, and now Christopher's typically well-observed revival of George Bernard Shaw's love triangle, Candida, sees out the summer (with only the children's pleasures of Bill & Ben still to come).

Oxford Stage Company is the Florence Nightingale of touring companies, reviving the flagging spirits of the old soldiers of theatre. This production marks the 100th anniversary of the first public performance of Shaw's play, and this early work - it was only his fifth in a career that ran to 50 - took ten years to reach the stage and has continued that tardy progress ever since, last being staged in the West End in 1977.

Yet it is hard to see why. The running time is a most pleasing two hours (ideal on hot summer nights, and blissfully short and sharp by Shaw's loquacious standards) and this Victorian play is a lighter, more comedic variant on Ibsen's A Doll's House, whose influence is writ large in the character of Candida, created 15 years on from Ibsen's groundbreaking Nora.

Candida (Serena Evans) is married to Hackney parson the Reverend James Mavor Morell (Andrew Havill), a Christian socialist preacher whose missionary zeal extends to inviting callow poet Eugene Marchbanks (Richard Glaves) into his home after finding him sleeping rough.

Marchbanks, 18, aristocratic and precocious, gauche and cheeky, throws that hospitality back in his face by shaking the dust from the parsonage sitting room and removing the blinkers from the parson's eyes, audaciously informing him of his love for Candida. Suddenly, the previously confident parson is facing a Morell dilemma, newly struck by self-doubt at the realisation that his wife has another side to her, untapped in his preoccupation with work.

Luscombe has stripped the play of melodramatic sentimentality while adding to the sense of restlessness by introducing the sound of birds' fluttering wings. It is a battle of wills and male egos ripe for pricking by candid women, with comedic relief from Barry Stanton's brusque, self-seeking father-in-law, Mr Burgess, Hattie Ladbury's loyal, loving parish secretary Proserpine Garnett and Jake Harders's devoted young curate, Mill.

The outstanding Havill and promising, boyish Glaves superbly play out the clash of youthful idealism and pragmatic compromise, personal need and selfless public service. Evans has a wonderful moment, adjusting Marchbanks' collar with delicious understatement, and the only sign of this production being in its last week is her reaching for a glass of lemonade in the denouement to soothe her voice.

Updated: 11:21 Wednesday, July 28, 2004