Spring is here and Chiswick's Tabard Theatre is lightening the mood and celebrating the season in style with A Flea in Her Ear, a brand new adaptation of Georges Feydeau's gloriously mad play – often described as the funniest farce ever written.

“When the news from around the world can be so depressing, it feels totally right for us to be doing this and to be able to laugh together,” says director Alex Sutton, speaking during the final week of  rehearsals for the show, which opens on March 29 for a limited four week run.

The plot of Flea In Her Ear, which has been newly translated by Sacha Bush,  involves suspicious wife Raymonde Chandebise testing her husband's fidelity by sending a letter from a ‘secret' admirer suggesting a romantic rendezvous at the local 'dubious morals' hotel. What follows is a string of frenzied mix-ups as mistaken identities spiral out of control, complete with door slamming, gender bending cross-dressing and slapstick comedy.

If all that sounds familiar to British audiences, it's because Parisian Feydeau, who wrote the farce at the height of era known as the Belle Epoque in 1907, was the original master of the genre.

“All the British farces that have been produced since were inspired by Feydeau,” says Alex. “The main difference is our versions tend to use innuendo, whereas we found the French could be much more blunt.

“One of the big challenges was that the plot involves lots of going in and out of doors,  along with a revolving bed which plays a central role, and I spent a lot of time with our designer Mike Leopold working out how we were going to do that on the Tabard's stage.”

Tabard regulars will remember last autumn's Proof which was also designed by Mike and was nominated for an Off West End award for Best Set Design.

Alex, who grew up with music and comedy by taking part in carnivals and pantomimes in his native Somerset from an early age, says he is used to onstage challenges. “ In my last production for the Tête à Tête Opera Festival, Dostoevky's The Crocodile, one of the characters is eaten by the crocodile but stays alive and spends the rest of the play inside it!

“This is the first straight classical farce I have done. The original play was much longer, and we have  adapted it for a contemporary audience so it flows a lot better and is shorter but without losing any of the characters or the story.”

He adds: “ Rehearsals have gone very well, as we have an incredibly strong cast of six very versatile actors.”

The six who are donning Victorian costumes are Jamie Birkett, Dominic Brewer, Haley Catherine, Rachel Dawson, Clark James and Richard Watkins.

As the icing on the cake,  A Flea In Her Ear also has a brand new musical score provided by award winning composer Eamonn O'Dwyer, which sees the characters bursting into song. “It's not a musical play, but it is a play with music, and that music makes it even funnier,” says Alex.

And audiences who have been treated to  what Eamonn describes as his “melodies francaises” are likely to find themselves heading off into the night singing “Ooh La La” and “Sacre Bleu”!

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