STAGE REVIEW: Out of Order - at the Festival Theatre, Malvern, from Monday, May 8 to Saturday, May 13, 2017.

IF a farce is your particular cup of tea then you need a master of mirth to ensure the mix is perfect.

This particular offering passes muster with considerable ease being - as it is - from pen of the king of farce himself, one Ray Cooney.

This award-winning comedy has been around for some time but Cooney, who is also directing, has once again done a first class job in updating it for this UK tour.

Based around the world of Government - it has all the ingredients. There’s a scurrilous MP, who is one of Mrs May’s lap-dogs, a bumbling Parliamentary Private Secretary, a scantily clad young lady - you surely expected that - and also a hapless hotel manager, along with an ancient but money-making waiter!

Oh, yes! There’s also the body of a private detective trapped by a hotel room window which has landed on the back of his head. Only the body later reveals it isn’t actually so and is still in the land of the living…

Taking us along a plot with a number crazy side issues it can also boast a fine gathering of comedy actors and actresses to play the parts and deal with the diversions, to near perfection.

All ensure the characters we are laughing at and with are believable as they struggle through improbable situations.

The casting looks right, one thing our revered writer believes is vital, and at just two hours duration using one set and vital doors and windows it ratchets up the laughter gauge considerably.

Jeffery Harmer, stepping in for the indisposed Andrew Hall - described as currently ‘out of order’, is terrific as the MP Dick Willey who has an answer for everything. If he hasn’t his put-upon PPS George Pigden, splendidly portrayed by Shaun Williamson, will find one.

Stand out performances too from Arthur Bostrom - still affectionately remembered as the English-mangling French policeman in ‘Allo ‘Allo - who is the hotel manager, Susie Amy’s glamorous secretary Jane, who works for Jeremy Corbyn, and the ever-popular Sue Holderness, but too brief a time on stage as the MPs wife.

All considerably topical.

And there’s also a truly delightfully funny display from James Holmes as the ageing waiter who knows how to supplement his wages - thanks to the wages of sin!

He really exploits every situation to his benefit much in the way Cooney’s writing hits the mark with regular accuracy.

The whole thing is glued together by the master’s interpretation of the rules of farce. Having been immersed in the world of theatre since leaving school in his early teens in the 1940s, he has mixed with such venerable talent as Brian Rix and the hugely popular Whitehall Comedies and stars of yesteryear.

It clearly shows he has learned his lessons well.