You could see Roxane’s point about the problematic proboscis when the likes of Gérard Depardieu and Antony Sher were involved but you might think she could overlook that honking hooter if it had the rest of Joseph Fiennes attached to it.

Fears that the not uncomely Fiennes would prove too much of a pretty face for Edmond Rostand’s glorious, boisterous, gut-wrenching epic are delightfully dispelled the minute he arrives exuding that crucial “panache” — and doesn’t let up for the next three hours.

Trevor Nunn, making his Chichester debut in this summer’s all-star line-up of directors, is in his element here. He gets to oversee a bit of Les Mis-style barricade-storming in Act Four’s Siege of Arras but most importantly he brings each of the drama’s five distinctive locations to cogent, vivid life.

Fiennes, barely offstage for a minute, drags us viscerally through the pain behind the panache, aided by Anthony Burgess’s definitive translation.

Cyrano whimpers with joy when Roxane (Alice Eve, pleasingly bright, capricious and, finally, contrite) mentions an undeclared love, before the brutal revelation that it is nice-but-dim Christian (Stephen Hagan) who has erroneously captured her heart.

The supporting roles, including the baker (Paul Grunert) whose aim is a “synthesis of poetry and pastry”, are all carefully coloured rather than merely sketched in but the night overwhelmingly belongs to Fiennes, if not to his odd-looking plastic snout.

Let the man follow his nose into a West End sorely in need of sweeping heroism, and then to some Best Actor awards.
Until 30 May (01243 781312, www.cft.org.uk).