For those who would like to see Henry Goodman play Cyrano de Bergerac, one of the great roles in French drama, this play gives you a tantalising taste. Though not for long.

Alexis Michalik’s comedy — a hit in Paris and translated for this UK premiere by Jeremy Sams — imagines how the character of Cyrano came about. So the hero here is not Cyrano, but his creator Edmond Rostand, played with wit and a fizzing charisma by Freddie Fox.

It is 1895, and Fox’s Rostand is a struggling dramatist in desperate need of a hit. This is a place and period in which Sarah Bernhardt (Josie Lawrence) is still queen of the stage and farceur Georges Feydeau (David Langham) king. And, with not too much concern about historical accuracy, Michalik chucks these real life theatrical figures together to produce a knockabout comedy that doesn’t have the legs to last the full two-and-three-quarter hours of Roxana Silbert’s production.

On the premise that art imitates life, Rostand is shown living a version of the story he wrote for his character. He has a handsome actor friend Leo (Robin Morrissey) in love with a woman whom Leo is too dim to woo with words. So Edmond helps with his poetry which Leo recites as if it were his own.

The most interesting moment of this take on Rostand’s play is the imagined inspiration for Cyrano’s famously witty repost to the man who insults his huge nose. In this version, Edmond overhears black bar owner Monsieur Honoré (Delroy Atkinson) verbally dismantle a racist customer. But it says a lot that the wittiest moments in this play about a masterpiece are from the masterpiece itself.

The madcap action sees Edmond caught up in an epistolary affair with the woman of Leo’s desires, which is all inspiration for a new play commissioned by Goodman’s grand actor manager Constant Coquelin, who was indeed the first to play Cyrano.

Everything resolves in the role being acted in a triumphant first night that went down in theatre history. And the fact that Goodman manages to squeeze genuine pathos into this scene-within-a-scene shows just what a class act he is.

But Michalik is far too indulgent of his declared love for theatres and actors. And the inevitable result is that you spend most of his play about Cyrano de Bergerac wishing you were watching the real thing.