The Cabinet Minister: 'sparkling' comedy with a 'satirical sting'

"In theatre as in comedy, timing is everything", said Alun Hood in What's On Stage. So Arthur Wing Pinero's 1890 tale of a "high-ranking MP embroiled in financial scandals" has come to London's Menier Chocolate Factory at just the right moment.

The new adaptation by Nancy Carroll offers an "evening of rare, unexpected pleasure". Directed by Paul Foster, the staging "isn't really a revival but more an all-guns-blazing reinvention of a Victorian farce that, let's be honest, nobody was really gagging to see disinterred".

Carroll also stars as Lady Kitty Twombley, the "scheming, financially incontinent wife" of Sir Julian Twombley (Nicholas Rowe), the titular cabinet minister teetering on the "brink of disaster". Sara Crowe is "deliciously funny" as Julian's "meddlesome" sister, the Dowager Countess of Dumdurris, while Phoebe Fildes and Laurence Ubong Williams are "terrific" as a pair of working-class siblings plotting to "work their way up the social ladder".

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The modern-day parallels with Labour's ongoing gift expenses scandal are "obvious but never belaboured", and Carroll has done a superb "resuscitation job", trimming the running time and getting rid of "extraneous" characters.

It's a comedy as "sparkling as they come", said Arifa Akbar in The Guardian. "Springy, silly and full of satirical sting", the new staging is a "startling reminder of how our world can be deliciously sent up by the past".

"Delightfully pacy" and "elegant", Carroll's adaptation "brims with vitality, full of salacious double entendres" and "unmistakable contemporary political allusions", said Lindsay Johns in The Telegraph. The actor brings "impeccable comedic timing" to her starring role as Lady Kitty, and Janet Bird's period sets and costumes are "enchanting".

The plot is still "pure froth", said Clive Davis in The Times, but Foster has made sure "it's unpacked with real zest", and it zips along "so cheerfully that you barely have time to worry about the snobbery". It's like a "glass of fizz that hits the spot".

Anyone that's looking for a "rollicking good time" will find it here, added Hood. Carroll, Foster and the "sublime" cast have transformed Pinero's Victorian play into a "life-enhancing triumph".

Until 16 November at Menier Chocolate Factory, London SE1