With a plot that includes small shareholder revolt at boardroom fat cat salaries and tiny companies being taken over by much larger ones and then promptly annihilated, the one thing you can't say about Howard Teichmann and George S Kaufman's 51-year-old Broadway comedy The Solid Gold Cadillac is that it's dated.

First seen on Broadway in 1953 and in the West End in 1965, it could still be plucked from the pages of the Daily Mail or a scene from a Michael Moore film. Throw in a corporate scandal of aggressive lobbying for government contracts to the company's former chairman who is now installed in Washington, and Donald Rumsfeld immediately comes to mind.

But despite the strenuous efforts of an engaging, hard-working cast in Ian Brown's slick production, what you unfortunately also can't say about The Solid Gold Cadillac is that it is particularly funny, either. The gentle air of amusement soon gives way to a feeling of bemusement that someone thought it a good idea to revive such a lame, tame play. You can just imagine a producer reading the script and thinking, "What a hoot! This is just like today!", but forgetting that a satirical comedy actually has to be funny.

As it is, the team has done what they can to enliven it on its return from the comedy graveyard. It's always a treat to see Patricia Routledge, and she's the main attraction here as a sometime Broadway actress Laura Partridge who attends the 59th Annual Shareholders' meeting for the General Products Corporation of America, in which she has ten shares, and proceeds to wreak havoc with her enquiries about the inflated executive salaries she spots in the annual report.

In an attempt to keep her quiet, the Board offer her a job with the company - the specially created position of Director of Shareholders' Relations - and she's installed in Room 2762 and given a secretary (Lucy Briers).

Soon, she's dictating letters to thousands of small shareholders - a fact that the Board's treasurer Clifford Snell (Teddy Kempner) points out is costing the company $95 a week in postage. Then she's despatched to Washington DC to try to bring former company chairman Edward L McKeever (Roy Hudd), now working for the administration, around to awarding it government contracts.

While Routledge and Hudd employ a complete battalion of comedy tricks and tics to chivvy things along, they fight a losing battle against a script that simply doesn't give them the material to work with. They're a potentially volcanic stage team, but the lava, never mind the laughter, runs sadly dry. As both wrestle with some mild physical comedy - he out of a parade of office exercises, she out of rifling through the contents of her desk - I smiled, but I didn't once laugh.

- Mark Shenton