Now in its thirty-second touring season, Illyria has developed and honed to perfection a very distinctive and outstandingly nippy way of working in the open-air. Oliver Gray’s version of Pride and Prejudice (which I have seen before) dates from 2003, uses five actors, mostly Jane Austen’s words and masses of high octane energy.

This talented bunch start by selling programmes dressed in simple. loosely Regency, cotton undergarments, and then spend the next two and a half hours hopping in and out of bonnets, frocks, coats, shawls and hat at top speed.  Pat Farmer’s costumes are a stroke of genius. Perhaps they’d like to let me know some time where I can buy a gorgeous statement long double breasted overcoat and top hat like the one Mr Darcy wears – and makes quite a power statement with.

Edward Simpson is curmudgeonly but very attractive as plain speaking Mr Bennet. He is also hilarious as the revolting Lady Catherine de Bourgh, benign as Mr Gardiner and a good, back-to-the-audience Darcy double in That Coat – among other things. It’s an extraordinarily busy show. Anyone who’s not actually playing a character has to be the coconut-clicking horse in one of the numerous carriage journeys.

One neat way of ensuring that we really hear Austen’s sardonic voice is to make Elizabeth also into the main narrator and Nicola Foxfield (alongside occasional appearances as a Brummy housekeeper) does this well. Her Lizzy is feisty and intelligent but also warmly human. She conveys the distress when she hears of Lydia’s devastating escapade very convincingly. And of course she reacts to the outrageous Darcy with hilarious fury before, eventually, we reach the conclusion we all know is coming complete with a good joke about the lake at Pemberley also being good for swimming in.

Sarah Pugh’s Mrs Bennet (among lots of other roles) is a joy. She has the obsessive nervous energy and general shallow dimness perfectly – hilarious to watch but utterly impossible if one had to live with it. And Rosie Zeidler’s Lydia really dialls up the likeness between them. Zeidler is very good too at the contrasting, sober, sensible pragmatic Charlotte Lucas and as Jane, the eldest daughter whose future hangs in the balance for so long.

Chris Wills is a fine actor. His Darcy – all charismatic haughtiness and outrageous, disdainful prejudice – is spot on and his oily-voiced Mr Collins an enjoyable contrast. Dancing as Mr Collins –  bowing, scraping, and bobbing up and down is lovely comedy. And, he’s good as the caddish Wickham.

Yes, there are lots of very enjoyable performances in this show which really runs with Jane Austen’s satire rather than trying to reinvent it. And it sits neatly on a simple open air set consisting of a big backing fan, a couple of flexibly used garden benches and two big costume boxes. I’m always delighted, moreover, to see  good quality live theatre reaching a pleasingly big audience in a setting such as Dartford Central Park at affordable prices.