Sleuth, Apollo Theatre, London

More than an element of spoof...

Binkie was wrong. The King of the West End Producers, probably starting to lose his touch by 1970, said it would close in a week. It didn't and Sleuth played more than two thousand performances and the rest is theatre and movie history.

Of course, what Binkie Beaumont hated was its merciless parody of the Thirties country house detective story, the very sort of ludicrous concoction that had made him so rich. The fruit of a less kowtowing generation, Sleuth was one of the first anti-thrillers, even if it relies on corny clue-spotting as much as anything it satirises. But how does it look now? Can it still pass for modern or does it now seem as hoary as the rest of them?

Well, Bill Kenwright – more Impresario-Who-Knows-No-Shame than natural successor to Binkie – has chosen to revive Sleuth for the summer tourist rush and the biggest surprise is that it still just about passes for cutting edge. It requires a complete design overhaul by Paul Farnsworth – the set is no longer a junk shop run wild, the manorial room is cool, beech blond and remote-controlled.

And standing centre stage is an Armani-clad Peter Bowles, giving a restrained performance. As a result, he finds something genuinely humorous and likeable and (more importantly) believable in the character of Andrew Wyke, the crime novelist. We all know that no one in 2002 would publish his Come-Back-Agatha-All-Is-Forgiven whodunits but that's beside the point. He's a lonely man, obsessed with his games and his own orotundity and he's looking for company.

Into his private world comes Milo Tindle, about to run off with Wyke's wife. Far from objecting, Wyke is keen on the idea but he intends to test Milo first. And so the games begin. Though Gray O'Brien's performance is equally understated, the acting cannot hide the creaky bits. In this age of cohabitation, Milo would have no need to either marry or bankroll this woman – yet Milo's burgeoning overdraft is central to the plot. And they really should have cut the lines about whether Andrew would allow her to divorce him. And a glossary should be provided for concepts like "gelignite" and "blancmange". And Tony Martin might have something to say about the likelihood of an owner-occupier being acquitted for shooting a burgling intruder.

But I'm quibbling again. At its core, this tit-for-tat rapier duel rarely loses pace and never gives itself away. And if the axis between the two men has been rendered false by subsequent social changes, Elijah Moshinsky has replaced it with a new, homo-erotic undertow. To begin with, I thought this was merely an unwanted product of the script's own campness. But then, as the circles wind tighter in the plot, it becomes ever more central, culminating in a deathly kiss, which was a genuinely surprising (and yet wholly unsurprising) moment.

To 28 September (0870 890 1101)