“The insipidity and yet the noise; the nothingness and yet the self-importance of all these people.” As Toby Frow’s production of Pride and Prejudice reached its eightieth, interval-less minute, I was beginning to think that I could apply Miss Bingley’s famous remark to it, but several moments in the second Act save it from such a condemning.

 To all you Austen-philistines, a rich man comes to town, a mother tries to marry her daughters to said rich man, rich man’s even richer, arrogant friend eventually wins the heart of heroine. There are scenes between the Bennet girls and their mother (Susan Hampshire) that are carried off very sweetly: the scene of Mrs Bennet’s hysteria following her daughter’s elopement is suitably touching, and the exchanges that Elizabeth Bennet (Katie Lightfoot) has with her father and with Lady Catherine de Bourgh maintain their respective needs for quiet dignity and barely restrained fury. Frow also combines an understated set with hints of elegance very effectively at times, with only a few picture frames, the odd chaise lounge and the wooden frame of a piano, the stage is mercifully uncluttered.

However, there are a lot of things going on in this production that make it...well, a bit weird. Promises of greatness are ruined by strange decisions: the eavesdropping and gasping of the ensemble during important conversations are bewildering, and key moments are subjected to unwelcome hamming-up. Scenes are fast-forwarded to such an extent that the plot is spread thinly and the merging of scenes becomes ridiculous. The unwelcome arrival of the Collins in Act II is followed swiftly by Lydia Wickham’s arrival, Mr Bennet’s proposal, Lady Catherine’s arrival, and Mr Darcy’s snogging Lizzy, with barely a pause for breath.

It just smacks of a gratuitous farce: occasionally funny and endearing, but seeking cheap laughs and lacking subtlety. I wanted to love it, and if I pretend I’m not a geek I can see the good bits, but in truth I was just a bit underwhelmed.