Bell Shakespeare has rolled into town with a wonderfully sharp-witted version of Moliere's The Miser.

Justin Fleming has provided an agile and funny adaption and there's not a weak link in the ensemble of perceptive performers.

And at its centre is John Bell as Harpagon the miser in a performance that takes the role into the outskirts of tragedy.

Not that this Harpagon has self awareness; his tragedy is that he utterly fails to see where his mean spirited narrowness is going to lead him and leave him.

He is the only joyless creature in the play as he scurries around protecting his gold, which is unproductively buried in his garden.

And for what?

He has a somewhat languid daughter Elise (played by Harriet Gordon-Anderson) who is in love with his elegant servant Valere (Jessica Tovey) and a sightly vapid son Cleante (Damien Strouthos) who is head over heels for the elegant Mariane (Elizabeth Nabben).

Mariane has no fortune but Harpagon fancies Mariane for himself.

He has found for his children rich (but old) partners. None of this is going down well and none of it includes putting that hidden money to good use.

The ensemble also includes the nicely devious matchmaker Frosine (played by Michelle Doake), Master Simon (Russell Smith) who has the hapless Cleante in trouble over his quest for a loan, and a fiercely back talking cook, Master Jaques (Jamie Oxenbould).

Sean O'Shea brings off a strong double act as the lugubrious servant La Fleche and the urbane Signor Anselm whose revelations and good nature, as well as a dose of deus ex machina, bring about the resolution necessary to this kind of play.

Everyone is dressed just the other side of outrageously in Anna Tregloan's elegantly eclectic costumes, with their nods to Moliere's 17th century mixed with a healthy dose of the modern.

And her economical gold walled set has enough doors for all the farcical slamming, peeking, concealing and revealing.

The teamwork is terrific, but when everyone has departed through the doors at the end it is Bell's Harpagon who leaves the most lingering impression.

His wealth is represented by a small gold box and the garden in which it is hidden by a set of what look like small cubic terrariums.

When his children and the others have happily gone off to embrace whatever life will offer, he is left behind to embrace only his riches.

Scrooge McDuck used to go swimming in the gold of his money vault but this Harpagon lacks McDuck's exuberance.

Bell makes of him an angular dwindled character whose limitations have driven everyone away but also makes it clear that Harpagon just does not see this.

It's a superbly questioning performance nestling disturbingly inside what is otherwise a comedy.

Don't miss it.