AS capital versus labour plots go, The Man in the White Suit, takes the biscuit – and gleefully does away with the usual despair and drudgery.

Sidney Stratton, a brilliant young scientist and hopeless idealist fresh from academic success at Cambridge has a dream: to create an unbreakable, stain- and dirt-repelling fabric. Easier said than done. Following a series of botched experiments and (explosive) mishaps, his funding is pulled and he's summarily sacked. Undaunted, the dogged inventor ploughs on and eventually gets his ‘eureka!’ moment. Sadly for Sidney, no good deed goes unpunished. When his revolutionary invention threatens to render the profit-driven fabric industry obsolete, avaricious factory bosses band together to ensure his indestructible cloth never sees the light of day.

As the beleaguered but oh-so good-natured Sidney, Stephen Mangan brings the laughs with a generous helping of pathos to boot, while Kara Tointon ramps up proceedings with daring dances as the coquettish industrialist’s daughter Daphne Birnley. Special mention too must be made for Richard Cordery, who serves up a healthy dose of bombastic bluster as clothing magnate Alan Birnley.

Frenetic The 39 Steps-style chases (complete with cardboard cutouts pelting it up an down hills), much song and dance, farce up the wazoo and giggles galore... Sean Foley's wackadoodle take on Alec Guinness's classic 1951 Ealing comedy is a hoot!

The play was staged at the Theatre Royal in Bath.