The comic elements introduced into Theatre Alibi’s stage version of Graham Greene’s wartime spy thriller The Ministry of Fear have managed to turn it into a play better titled ‘The Ministry of Fun’.

Writing in the programme, adapter Daniel Jamieson refers to an “Ealing comedy” feel to some of the novel’s action, which the company has tried to reflect. In respect of the turbanned fortune teller Mrs Bellairs (Craig Edwards), whose meeting with the principal character Arthur Rowe (Chris Bianchi) sets the plot in progress, director Nikki Sved told The Oxford Times last week: “We thought of Alastair Sim playing in St Trinian’s.”

Actually, I thought of Peter Mandelson in Kiss of the Spider Woman, an absurd image that remained with me as this action-packed adventure proceeded with all the zaniness – potty policemen, sinister shrinks (an especially good turn from Derek Frood) and a deal more cross-dressing – of a Joe Orton farce.

The performance takes place on and around a tower of tangled steps, girders and walkways for which designer Trina Bramman clearly took inspiration from Graham Sutherland’s 1941 painting The City: A Fallen Lift Shaft. This serves very well to suggest the atmosphere of the Blitz, as do the wailing sirens, pounding explosions and searchlights sweeping the night sky.

Of the six players on stage, only the excellent Mr Bianchi is confined to one character. His Rowe is a compelling study of a decent man involved in unsettling events beyond his comprehension. Still tormented with guilt for having murdered his wife – a ‘mercy killing’ that lends a topical flavour to the piece – he finds it hard, at first, to recognise the prospect of another love, in the shapely form of mysterious Austrian Anna Hilfe (Jordan Whyte) when this is offered.

Speaking of mercy killing, this service could usefully have been supplied to the onstage duo of sax/clarinet player Adam Cross and double-bassist Nick Laughlin whose irritating jazzy maunderings (composer Thomas Johnson) accompany the action throughout.

This would have freed up some of the budget for the production – partly financed by the Playhouse and by Exeter Northcott – for investment in a slightly larger cast. With five actors playing so many different characters, it is occasionally difficult to find out who ‘is’ who at a particular moment. To some extent, though, this strangely adds another element to the fun.

Until Saturday. Tel: 01865 305305 (www.oxfordplayhouse.com).