Watching 'Round the Horne. Revisited' is a curious experience. A collection of the funniest sketches from the sixties radio series have been transplanted onto stage as though it were the original recording session and we the studio audience. Each member of the original cast is recreated with the players representing not just an individual cast member, but also each character played by them, and this is no small feat. It's an idea that shouldn't work.

But, somehow, it does. As Brian Cook, one of writers of the original series and this stage version, comments 'The fact that it was a radio show made it easier to contemplate doing a stage version. Nobody had much of an idea what the characters looked like, only their verbal shenanigans'. Inadvertently, however, Brian may well have hit upon the greatest weakness of the play; try though the performers might this is not an exciting visual spectacle; shut your eyes, however, and you are transported back.

And this, perhaps, is both the show's other great weakness and its greatest strength because in order to really enjoy yourself you need to have memories to be transported back to. Though I laughed out loud, my friend not already familiar with Jules and Sand, Charles and Fiona and all the others did not, and I can't help but wonder if part of the humour did lie in remembering how it originally was. I would urge caution to anyone considering taking someone not familiar with 'Round the Horne' to see it, however, I must also note that amongst the audience there were children laughing as loud if not louder than their parents and grandparents - risqué though it might have been back then, your children and grandchildren will love it.

'Round the Horne. Revisited' will prove to be a fun evening for anyone with fond memories of the original. However the cast could never quite live up to the impossible standards set back in the sixties, so true aficionados may be disappointed. However, with a hilarious new Julian and Sandy sketch there will be something for almost everyone.

It is indeed a curious experience and at times almost as though one were watching the real thing; the innuendo is still there, Kenneth William's tantrums are still there and of one other thing you can be sure: it is positively bona to vada their dolly old eeks once more.

Jamie Frew, 30/04/05