When a play starts and the stage lights don’t come up, it’s usually not a good sign. Even in a Freshers’ Late Show. But that’s how things work in Black Comedy, a farce written by ADC alumnus Peter Shaffer. Light is dark, honesty is cruelty, and philosophy springs from the mouth of a ridiculous German electrician.

Shaffer is probably best known as the dramatist behind Equus, and Black Comedy is no bit of frippery either.  The inclusion of a highly stereotypical gay character, Harold Gorringe, is a mark of Shaffer’s bravery, given that the play was first performed in 1965.

Sculptor Brindsley Miller and his fiancée Carol Melkett  await the arrival of a German millionaire, George Bamberger, who has taken an interest in his work, and they decorate their London flat with antique furniture purloined from a neighbour. For the first few minutes the play is bathed in darkness, but when a fuse in the basement blows, the lights come up, and suddenly, paradoxically, there’s nowhere to hide. Classic farce ensues, but things take a darker turn when Brindsley’s mistress, Clea, unexpectedly enters the fray.

Isla Fisher pitched her simpering Carol perfectly. Will Karani’s nervy Brindsley was likable. Still, Brindsley wasn’t quite as fleshed out as the other characters, and given that he is the character who carries the play, the whole production suffered a little. As Colonel Melkett, Will Seward was booming, irrepressible and worked his facial muscles almost to death. He was repaid with the adulation of the audience.

Lewis Owen as Harold Gorringe was a master of the Paul O’Grady school of camp, though his accent did waver at times. Brid Arnstein’s Clea was excellently understated; a chilling enigma. Arnstein came into her own late on after having to make the best of the weak early lines she was dealt by Shaffer. James Swanton was Einsteinian, manic and magnetic as the electrician Schuppanzigh and unlikely bringer of light.

James Hancock-Evans and Emma Makinson directed a smooth rendering of Shaffer’s picture of 1960s social and artistic hollowness. But Edward Quekett’s lighting brought it into bleak relief.