We all know Brighton can be saucy - something playwright Alan Bennett picked up on back in the Seventies.

This play, one of his earliest, takes a look at "Brighton's plush, silk-stocking district of Hove" from the eyes of the Wicksteed family.

Apparently respectable, their conventional appearance hides their sex-mad yearnings.

There's Doctor Arthur Wicksteed, with his wandering hands; his wife Muriel ("have to padlock your underpants when she's around"); son Dennis, who thinks he's going to die and, yes, in a way, he does want a dirty girl; and Constance, the doctor's sister, who is not a spinster but "unmarried".

The play is, in the words of its author, a farce without doors, and with characters including Lady Rumpers and Canon Throbbing, expect no shortage of innuendos, double entendres, groping and trouser dropping.

But there's more to it that smutty fumblings - Bennett set out to remind us how important it is to make the most of life because "death will have the body in the end".

Dr Wicksteed is played by James Fleet, who has perfected the bumbling but affable Englishman through roles in The Vicar Of Dibley and Four Weddings And A Funeral. The cast also includes Annette Badland, who's appeared in TV shows including Doctor Who and Bad Girls.

The director is Peter Hall, one of the leading figures in British theatre who founded the RSC, ran The National Theatre and has staged more than 40 productions with his own company.

It is 32 years since Bennett penned Habeas Corpus, yet his observations of those immoral folk whose "satisfaction of the body comes before everything else" proves timeless.

  • Starts 7.45pm plus 2.30pm Thurs & Sat, tickets £15-£24. Call 08700 606650.