"She's selfish, greedy, vain, and great fun to play," says Liza Goddard of her character, the overbearing Mrs Hardcastle, in Goldsmith's comedy of errors. "She thinks she's marvellous and doesn't look a day over 40, but like all the characters in the play, she's wonderfully flawed."

Bringing together a host of comic characters, She Stoops To Conquer is said by academics to mark the resurgence of "laughing" comedy, a reaction against the "sentimental" comedy which had previously dominated the English stage.

And the mere vision of the ridiculous Mrs Hardcastle dressed in gaudy scarlet, buried under a huge white wig and trying manically to find a rich wife for her stupid son, confirms this.

Goldsmith's farce is packed to bursting with misunderstandings, merry mishaps, sly schemes and bawdy dialogue. Yet it is often said the play's antiquated language render the jokes less accessible for modern audiences.

Birmingham Repertory Theatre have come up with an ingenious solution to this problem.

"There is a very witty new prologue and epilogue written by Bryony Lavery in modern-day language," reveals Goddard. "It creates a link between the magnificent 18th-Century world of the play and the present times."

Featuring two theatre ushers arguing with each other, this device cleverly parodies the main storyline of the play.

The action centres on one Charles Marlow, a wealthy young man, forced by his family to consider a potential bride he has never met.

He is anxious about meeting her because, while he is positively bawdy and lecherous around lower-class women, he suffers from shyness around ladies of wealth.

The bride-to-be, Kate, learning of his affliction, disguises herself as a serving maid to conquer his heart.

"The play is still being performed 230 years after it was written because it's about timeless human emotions," says Goddard. "It deals with love and loss and parental devotion and greed, but it does so in a light-hearted, humorous way so everyone from schoolchildren to adults can access it."

Featuring shockingly bright 18th-Century costumes and three live musicians on stage, not to mention an abundance of thigh slapping and heaving bosoms, She Stoops To Conquer arrives in Eastbourne as part of a UK tour.

Goddard appears alongside her former husband, Colin Baker, who plays the bumbling Mr Hardcastle.

"I was a bit shocked when I found out he was playing my husband, but now it's fine," she says. "We have become friends again like we were before we married."

  • 7.45pm, £13.50-£19.50, 01323 412000