YING Tong is reactivating the radio world of The Goons in the West End after its Leeds premiere last year. Round The Horne Revisited does exactly what it says on the tin.

And then there is the daddy of these trips down comedy memory lane, The Play What I Wrote, the play what Hamish McColl and Sean Foley wrote about Morecambe and Wise with Eric and Ernie's scriptwriter, Eddie Braben.

A hit in London, on Broadway and on tour, this play, with a play within, is playing in York for the first time next week at the Grand Opera House. McColl and Foley, otherwise known as the comedy duo The Right Size, have made way on the road for Clive Hayward and Kim Wall and third cast member Andy Williams.

Whereas McColl and Foley were a long-established comedy partnership, and the show's first touring trio of Ben Keaton, Joe Alessi and Toby Sedgwick had done a Marx Brothers play together, Clive and Kim are linking up for the first time. "The producers changed the brief and decided to cast people who hadn't worked together, though bizarrely Kim and I had temped together in the post room of Cathay Pacific," says Clive. "So when we met again there was a germ of recognition that we'd met 17 or 18 years ago, when I was a student at Bristol Old Vic and Kim was a resting actor at the time."

In the show, Clive and Kim play a comic duo by the name of...Hayward and Wall. "Like a long marriage, their partnership has gone stale," says Clive. "Wall, the straight man, is a pompous writer who wants to put on his serious play about the French Revolution, but Hayward, the comic one, realises it's doomed to failure. He secretly agrees with their producer that they should do a Morecambe and Wise tribute show instead, so Wall has to be conned into thinking he'll be putting on 'the play what I wrote'."

In Morecambe and Wise tradition, they do indeed end up performing Wall's play with a special celebrity guest, just as would happen in Eric and Ernie's Christmas shows. "The spirit of Morecambe and Wise gradually suffuses the show, and lots of Morecambe and Wise gags are lifted verbatim," says Clive.

He recalls watching "Britain's greatest comic double act" in his childhood. "We used to live in Africa and West Indies but Mum and Dad would always come home on leave at Christmas and we'd always watch the Morecambe and Wise Show on Christmas Day," he recalls. "It's extraordinary how their routines have seeped into our lives, like people going wa-hey when they hear a double entendre or wiggling their glasses like Eric did."

The cult status of The Play What I Wrote rests not least with the surprise appearance in each show of a mystery celebrity guest. The likes of Ewan McGregor, Kylie Minogue, Ian McKellen, Sting and Ralph Fiennes have popped up on stage in London; Stephen Tompkinson has appeared in the show in Oxford this week. Despite york twenty4seven badgering on your behalf, Grand Opera House staff declined to reveal next week's mystery turns.

"Doing this show is a release for the stars because the pressure is off them as they're not topping the bill, and it's great for us to work on a fairly level playing field," says Clive. "It keeps us on our toes, and every guest brings a different energy to it."

The Play What I Wrote, Grand Opera House, York, Monday to Saturday, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm,Thursday and Saturday. Tickets: £8.50 to £19.50; ring 0870 606 3590.

Updated: 10:46 Friday, February 18, 2005