La Bete *** TNT

Mark Rylance gives a five star performance in American David Hirson’s interval-free spoof in the style of 17th century French dramatist Moliere.

Spraying food through goofy teeth, he delivers a virtual monologue of self-aggrandising, rhyming couplets, touching on everything and nothing in a comic tour de force which takes up over half an hour of what is otherwise a not particularly distinguished play.

He’s a farting, burping populist, a street entertainer whose lowbrow work is anathema to Elomire (Frasier’s David Hyde Pierce), the high-minded court playwright who proves little more than the serious foil to Valere’s vulgarity. And Joanna Lumley has even less to do as their capricious royal patroness in this insubstantial 1991 oddity which loses its focus in an uneven debate and a not very funny play-within-a-play.

Comedy, Panton Street, SW1Y 4DN (0844 871 7622) Tube: Piccadilly Circus Until 4th Sept (£15 - £50)