BEN Hennessy's set, frequently spirited off and trundled around by a vast army of volunteers, is a riot of madcap primary colours - the perfect setting for the silent movie cardboard cut out menagerie of Bernard Farrell's whirling caricatures in his breathless 1983 turn of the century farce, a convulsive revival of which Red Kettle opened in Waterford last night.

Inspired but very much departing from Dion Boucicault's Forbidden Fruit, (italics) the multiple plot lines spirral out from the attempted cuckold of a jealous young wife, Josephine (Jenni Ledwell) by her nervy solicitor husband, Arthur (Paul Meade), egged on to seduce the glamourous human canon ball, Zulu (Jenny Maher) by his promiscuously conniving partner (Michael McElhatton). Enter - unwelcomed, but busy with their own amorous deceits Arthur's mother (Maire Hastings) and his real father the local doddery porter (Brendan Cauldwell); her fulminating varicose veined husband - (Frank McDonald) the perceptive intrusion of the solicitor partner's wife, (Jayne Snow); Josephine's long lost shelf shocked brother (Michael James Ford); and a well meaning but bungling waiter (Brian Doherty) of a discreet pink lit hotel; and the plot is sprung more often than you can keep up with.

The first, and much longer act, rather overloads the attention with its sub plots, but it sets the scene for the rushing frocks, slamming doors, and pandemonium of the split second timing of the denouement. The cast, a democratic mixture of locally grown talent and excellent imported actors, is as fine as any ever assembled - proving, if proof were needed, that Red Kettle's ongoing partnership with Mr Farrell can well provide us with the refreshingly silly (italics) tonic of laughter.