This Restoration comedy about syphilis is too nasty to be relevant today The Country Wife Theatre Royal Haymarket, London SW1

Just before The Country Wife (written in 1675 by the Restoration wit William Wycherley) kicks off, the entire stage is veiled by a giant curtain showing a naked woman atop a cow and holding a piglet. She is surrounded by a traffic jam that appears to be on the M25. So here we go again. Restoration comedy, à la moderne. This spring, the National Theatre produced George Etherege's The Man of Mode - written a year after The Country Wife - in similar fashion: foppish japes together with mobile phones, bondage, and even a bit of oral sex for good measure.

But Jonathan Kent's production (heralding the start of a "directors' season" at the Theatre Royal) is a bit more complicated. The designer, Paul Brown, has updated the show, but only partially. It's a pick'n'mix contemporisation, as if Brown and Kent never had the nerve to go the whole way. And so the cast wears full 17th-century costume, including wigs, hooped skirts and frock coats, on top of denim and cowboy boots. Everyone lolls around on period furniture, which is placed beside snooker tables. Possibly Kent decided to set it like this because, at heart (and unlike The Man of Mode), The Country Wife is a rather horrid play, albeit a comedy. To link it directly to modern-day life would just be too nasty.

The plot in effect turns on the presence of syphilis in polite society. Sex was a big deal at the court of Charles II. After the strictures of Cromwell and the Puritans, people found debauchery wherever they could. So prevalent was the scourge of syphilis that, to ensure a clean partner, men sought out country maidens who had not yet been tarnished by London life.

So it is for Pinchwife (David Haig at his neurotic best), a middle-aged gentleman who finds, and weds, the pulchritudinous Margery (Fiona Glascott), a maid fresh from the countryside. Indeed, it is she who appears on the cow at the start. Pinchwife keeps his bride literally under lock and key at his London home. He is particularly keen to hide her from his rascally friends, who lead a life indulging in snooker, dinner, theatre and sex.

Chief among these is Horner, a libidinous rogue who has chosen to pretend to suffer from syphilis in order to have free access to aristocratic women, as one of the side effects of "the pox" is impotence. Having assured everyone that he is thus affected, Horner has turned his lodgings into a sort of knocking shop, wherein Lady Fidget (Patricia Hodge) and her sisters can come to be ministered to by the seemingly inexhaustible Horner, who nips in through the "back entrance" (ho ho) to sort them out.

All very amusing. And, indeed, the gorgeous Toby Stephens does a great job as the outrageous Horner, all swagger and frills, his chiselled face full of mirth about "the privileges of a eunuch". This comedy has a chill heart, however. "He's a fool that marries, but a greater fool that does not marry a fool," says Pinchwife at one point, rolling his eyes and feeling his pulse. Haig does his best to mark up the comedy of a cuckold, but there is menace behind his capering, and a distinctly wincing misogyny that puts this play firmly within the "historic drama" canon.

Wycherley's gender politics is simply too extreme, and the play too dark to work well within the swagger and broad comedy that Kent has installed. Women are to be summoned like dogs, threatened with knives, and if they get too perky, locked up. Even the ridiculous Sparkish (Jo Stone-Fewings) when he doesn't get his way with his fiancée, threatens her with the back of his hand.

Bar Mark Henderson's appalling lighting, which leaves key speeches floundering in semi-darkness, the production - with its cut-out sets and Arcadian forest in the style of Maurice Sendak - is easy on the eye. And yet, for all the denim, this revival is not one of those joyous classics that audiences might find still resonates with aspects of contemporary British life.

Booking details: www.trh.co.uk

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