ROBERT Readman has been as quick off the mark as always to pick up One Man, Two Guvnors after Richard Bean's West End, Broadway and National Theatre touring hit was released to community companies.

Converted by the Hull playwright from Carlo Goldoni's more rigid Italian commedia dell'arte with a post-modern twist on good old-fashioned comedy, Bean's spry, spunky English farce is laden with slapstick, one-liners, cheery songs and a heap of colourful 1963 characters that any actor would leap at the chance to play.

Readman has cast very strongly, led off by the ebullient James Wood guiding The Craze skiffle band through Grant Olding's perky pre-show and interval songs.

Sacked from that band, Phil Grainger's artful, ever-hungry Francis Henshall becomes minder to Roscoe Crabbe when down on his uppers. However, Roscoe is in fact Rachel (Maya Bartley O'Dea), posing as her dead twin brother, who has been killed by her pucker boyfriend, Stanley Stubbers (James Potter), newly fled from London 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.

Grainger's larger-than-life demeanour and clowning skills are a blast, with plenty of audience interaction to boot. Bartley O'Dea shines too, and Maya Tether's brash, busty northerner, Dolly, Sam Baxter's foppish actor, Alan, and Jonny Holbek's no-nonsense South African, Lloyd, are tremendous too.

Nick Lewis is suitably dodgy as ex-con Charlie Clench, and Mick Liversidge's wild-haired, wobbly-legged octogenarian waiter, Alfie, takes one heck of a battering in the cause of physical comedy.

One Man Two Guvnors, Pick Me Up Theatre, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tonight at 7.30pm; tomorrow and Sunday at 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: thelittleboxoffice.com/pickmeuptheatre