‘Come, come – we are the men of intrinsic value who can strike our fortunes out of ourselves.’

Riotous laughter greeted this good-humoured performance of George Farquhar’s great romp. Director Simon Godwin’s first turn at restoration drama gives pride of place to its eighteenth-century hallmarks, with spectacular wigs and costumes against the backdrop of a simple but slickly executed set which switches between the grand country house of Lady Bountiful and the seedy inn where our two rakes pitch up in pursuit of their fortune.

Aimwell (Samuel Barnett) and Archer (Geoffrey Streatfeild) are young London gentlemen who have escaped the city – and their debtors – and concocted a plot to secure themselves a fortune. Arriving in provincial Lichfield, Archer takes on the role of Aimwell’s groom, and together they mount a romantic assault on the beautiful young heiress Dorinda, daughter of the eccentric and generous Lady Bountiful. Dorinda’s charms include beauty, innocence, and an improbable fortune of ten thousand pounds: for ‘no woman can be a beauty without a fortune’. But the beaux’ plan to woo and then abandon Dorinda soon runs into trouble, first from the astute innkeeper’s daughter, Cherry (Amy Morgan), who quickly sees through their disguises, and then by the developing attachments between Aimwell and Dorinda, and Archer and Mrs Sullen, the vivacious but unhappy daughter-in-law of Lady Bountiful. Sauciness ensues.

The last of Farquhar’s plays, staged just weeks before his death in April 1707, The Beaux’ Stratagem was a lasting hit throughout the eighteenth century, inspiring a tribute of sorts in Hannah Cowley’s 1780 drama The Belle’s Stratagem (rescued from relative obscurity in a 2011 production at the Southwark Playhouse). As in his penultimate production, The Recruiting Officer (1706), the transition from town to country becomes a trope of the whole play, with London fashions and London morals placed in counterpoint to the robust good manners of the Bountifuls and the rough-yet-incisive wit of a cast of supporting rogues, from servants to highwaymen. Farquhar’s work has generally fared better than Cowley’s, with modern productions including a celebrated 1970 revival with Dame Maggie Smith as the proto-feminist heroine Kate Sullen. Here, in the role of Mrs Sullen, Susannah Fielding produces an outstanding performance which at once easily matches the unruly comedy of the male protagonists and delivers the weightier and more thoughtful moments in the play.

It is this weightier matter which resonates with a modern audience as much as it must have done two centuries ago. Going beyond the conventional plot and stock characters of his earlier plays, Farquhar uses The Beaux’ Stratagem as a sharp critique of loveless marriage. It is not the institution itself, but the tragic reality for women who found themselves badly matched and unable to retrieve either their personal or economic freedom, which preoccupies the dramatist. The second half opens in an almost triumphal mode, with a call to arms from Mrs Sullen on behalf of the ‘women of England’: ‘cheated into slavery, mocked by a promise of comfortable society into a wilderness of solitude!’.

Perhaps the most startling scene features an improvised liturgy for divorce by mutual consent, presided over by a wholly approving on-stage audience drawn from all ranks of society. And the word ‘consent’, as highly charged in the twenty-first century as it was in the eighteenth, echoes through the closing speeches, when Mrs Sullen is resurrected from her fate and, we believe, empowered to take a second husband of her own volition. It is not the trusting young love of the newly-engaged Aimwell and Dorinda, but Mrs Sullen’s palpable relief which forms the lasting impression from the play’s comic conclusion.

Yet for the unconventionality of the ending, the play is far from downbeat, and the loveable cast lead us deftly through the confusion and merriment of Farquhar’s fast-paced action. Barnett and Streatfeild, as the dandyish rogues whose foolhardy stratagem goes happily awry, make an excellent comic pairing, with well-timed interventions from Timothy Watson as the pining romantic Count Bellair and Pearce Quigley as the morose servant Scrub. The cast’s warmth comes through in the numerous conspiratorial asides and in the series of musical interludes which punctuate the action. The sudden appearance of a grinning minstrel in the upper gallery of the set becomes a regular cue for an energetic folk dance or love song, usually crooned by the ostensibly unwilling Archer, who, like the audience, quickly surrenders to the fun. Michael Bruce’s folky score, switching easily from jig to ballad, brings these potentially tricky dramatic moments to life, and reminds us of the intrinsic place of music on the Restoration stage. The somewhat madcap feel of the second half is brought into check by these musical set-pieces, which bring the cast together, even if it is only in celebration of dramatic silliness.

Where there are downsides to the performance, they come from the challenge of balancing the play’s bawdy with a serious underside of social commentary. At times even Fielding’s not inconsiderable stage presence isn’t quite enough to quell the residual laughter of the previous scene. The staging, too, facilitates the spectacular sword-fighting and the farcical comedy of the inn and bedroom scenes, but provides less of the intimacy required to truly engage the audience in the fate of the characters.

A final nod must be made to Quigley, who is not afraid to steal the show as the earnest manservant Scrub. His wide-eyed guilelessness and Baldrick-like interjections bring Farquhar’s script to life, and give the audience some of the best laughs of the night.

I commend the production for doing justice to a remarkable piece of eighteenth-century drama, which manages to feel fresh and engaging whilst remaining true to the aesthetics of the Restoration stage. The decision to include the performance in the NT Live cinema screenings gives the opportunity for a wide audience to enjoy this spirited and eloquent piece of drama.

The Beaux’ Stratagem is at the National Theatre (Olivier Theatre) until September 20th 2015, and will be broadcast at cinemas across the UK and internationally on September 3rd as part of the NT Live programme.