THE National Theatre has given you plenty of chances to see One Man, Two Guvnors at Yorkshire’s theatres, but this week’s run in York is the last one on the present tour. No excuse will suffice for missing Hull playwright Richard Bean’s riotous farce: there is no funnier play on the boards right now.

What’s more, while this may be week 36 of a 37-week itinerary, tour director Adam Penford’s cast is expending as much energy as they were in week one, which is a remarkable feat because this show has even more physicality than Ade Edmondson and the late Rik Mayall brought to the smash-and-bash slapstick of Bottom.

As with the fast, frothy and fabulous Jeeves And Wooster: Perfect Nonsense on tour at Harrogate Theatre last month, Bean’s knockout, knockabout show reaffirms there is still a place for old-fashioned comedy, now delivered with a knowing, post-modern twist.

This is what separates One Man, Two Guvnors from past re-interpretations of Carlo Goldoni’s old Italian favourite, The Servant Of Two Masters. All stiffness is shaken out of the commedia dell’arte format by the explosive Bean, whose own hot and bothered plays had been marked by cynicism and scathing darkness. The former stand-up comic has always found plenty of life’s pages to be beyond a joke, but here he embraces farce as he changes tack with a celebration of British comedy’s staples of slapstick and song.

Bean was already a master of the one-liner retort, but One Man, Two Guvnors finds him having much more fun with his devilish wit against the backdrop of 1963 Brighton and London.

Gavin Spokes gives his all and more besides to the James Corden-patented role of Francis Henshall. He’s the “one man” of the title, who becomes minder to Roscoe Crabbe when down on his uppers and in need of a meal after being fired from the skiffle band, The Craze, who open the show and link each scene with Grant Olding’s perky songs.

The Roscoe on stage is in fact Rachel (Alicia Davies), posing as her dead twin brother, who has been killed by her boyfriend, Stanley Stubbers (Patrick Warner), newly fled to Brighton’s Cricketers Arms.

Henshall spots his chance of a second meal ticket in Stubbers’ service but must somehow keep each master unaware of the other’s existence.

Bean’s writing is so brilliant that everyone can shine, from Emma Barton’s spectacularly dim Pauline Clench to Edward Hancock’s foppish actor Alan, Jasmine Banks’s brash, thrusting, busty northerner, Dolly, and Shaun Williamson’s dodgy Charlie Clench.

Not for the first time, the loudest laughter goes to Alfie, the 87-year-old waiter with the errant pace maker, battered here, there and everywhere in the cause of slapstick.

One Man, Two Guvnors, four performances left. Be there.

One Man, Two Guvnors, National Theatre, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or atgtickets.com/york