Out Of Order/Malvern Theatres

A GOOD farce is very much like your favourite dish… the recipe must contain the right ingredients and plenty of them.

So it’s a case of for slap-up meal read slapstick. And with a head chef of Ray Cooney’s renown you just know something sumptuous is going to be served up.

Ever since the late great Brian Rix first ran across the Whitehall stage in his polka dot boxer shorts and trousers around ankles, the need for some gratuitous state of undress has been vital for the genre to succeed.

In this particular instance, it’s black stockings and the rest of the male fantasy togs courtesy of Susie Amy, whose character Jane Worthington is more than fit for salacious purpose.

She’s supposed to be Jeremy Corbyn’s secretary – yes, really – and it gets a lot, lot worse when her illicit liaison with a scheming Tory MP is interrupted by the discovery of a body on the balcony of their posh hotel hideaway.

All credit should go to Jeffrey Harmer as MP Richard Willey – cue endless double entendres – who had to take the place of actor Andrew Hall, forced to pull out of the production due to unforeseen circumstances.

Harmer plays the philandering careerist with an oiliness that could probably solve Britain’s energy needs at a stroke, effortlessly lubricating hapless colleague George Pigden’s slide into chaos with a breathtaking dexterity.

Shaun Williamson as Pigden hams up the role with more ham than a pork processing plant, the madness being further intensified with the arrival of Willey’s blousy wife Pamela (Sue Holderness).

James Holmes was a complete hoot as the hotel’s waiter, a kind of Brummie Manuel doing a bit of moonlighting from Fawlty Towers, while cuckolded husband Ronnie (Jules Brown) stumbles around like a man lost in the lobbies.

Doors opening and closing, a sash window that acts as a kind of guillotine… Out Of Order is a delicious slice of classic British silliness at its very best. It runs until Saturday (May 13).

John Phillpott