YOU are spoilt for choice for seeing towering female performances in touring shows at York Theatre Royal this week. Ideally attend both, but if that is not possible, make sure to see either Gwen Taylor in "gorgon" mode as Lady Bracknell or Elizabeth Mansfield returning to her tour-de-force role as Edith Piaf.

Taylor carries all before her and a bustle behind her in the Original Theatre Company production of Oscar Wilde's Irish-witted, English-teasing "trivial comedy for serious people" from 1895, played out on Gabriella Slade's Art Nouveau set design that simply changes the furniture and adds foliage to switch from Algernon Moncrieff's London flat to Jack Worthing's Hertfordshire country house greenhouse and library.

Thomas Howes's expansive Algernon looks somewhat cramped as he lounges on his sofa, when the nearby empty chaise longue would be much more accommodating, but everything else fits like a glove to go with the niceties of cucumber sandwiches, muffins and far-flung cake (as Algernon and Jack spat) in Wilde's mischief-making comedy of high-society manners.

Howes's effervescent Jack and Peter Sandys-Clarke's elegant Jack play it eloquently straight, letting the Wilde wit evolve naturally, whereas Louise Coulthard's Cecily Cardew, Jack's flighty 18-year-old ward, goes rather Wilder in the country, stretching her voice hither and thither for OTT comic effect. Hannah Louise Howell's more sophisticated, rebellious Gwendolen is on a resolutely even keel by comparison.

Gwen Taylor's Lady Bracknell is stern but not stentorian, savvy rather than a snob, and sharp as a diamond cutter too, and there are delightful performances from Susan Penhaligon's governess Miss Prism, surreptitiously sipping from her hip flask, and Geoff Aymer's gently enamoured Canon Chasuble. Alastair Whatley's direction is warmly witty, his production conducted playfully with a pleasing zing.

Meanwhile, in the Studio, the wonderful Elizabeth Mansfield is reprising a role she first played in Andrew Manley's Eighties at Harrogate Theatre. Over the years, she has appeared in Pam Gems's play Piaf and in this tribute show, Hymn To Love, an homage to Piaf where she plays The Singer, but essentially is evoking the Little Sparrow of Paris.

York Theatre Royal artistic director Damian Cruden is at the helm for this supreme new version, now set as The Singer/Piaf rehearses for her last concert at Carnegie Hall, Manhattan, in 1957, with The Pianist (Patrick Bridgman) a silent accompanist around which Piaf's moods swing. Being in Manhattan brings to the fore once more her grief at the loss of her great love, Marcel Cerdan, the Moroccan champion boxer she had begged to fly to New York in his lucky blue suit, only for the plane to crash, in 1949.

The phone keeps ringing, with ghostly echoes of his voice, breaking into her rehearsals, Piaf by now ravaged by alcoholism, drugs and mental breakdowns. Mansfield is one of Britain's great actresses, electrically charged, brilliant at character studies, inhabiting a role to the max, and she sings magnificently too, ending with a concert performance of defiant spirit.

The Importance Of Being Earnest, Original Theatre Company, York Theatre Royal, until Saturday; Hymn To Love – Homage To Piaf, York Theatre Royal/Theatre By The Lake, Keswick, York Theatre Royal Studio, tomorrow and Saturday. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk