THE Chuckle Brothers don't really do chuckles. In the one-and-a-half hours of rib-tickling silliness that make up their new show, Pirates Of The River Rother, I didn't see a single audience member chuckle. Not once.

I did, however, see them tittering, shrieking, guffawing and hooting with laughter at the madcap slapstick that has become the trademark of these two spiky-haired, South Yorkshire clowns.

They might fluff their lines a lot, the costumes might look as if they've seen better days, and the plot might be as loose as the screws in their heads, but this is family entertainment at its best.

And it's not just because the Chuckles work with two of their real-life brothers on stage, a couple of game old geezers who are obviously having a whale of a time as Admiral Slacking and Black Eye the Pirate. The family motif includes the audience too, with whole coach parties of kids, mums, dads, grannies and grandads visiting the theatre together - surely something of a rarity today.

The show, very loosely based on Treasure Island, is a real treasure chest of old-fashioned variety. There are acrobats, a magician, songs, sketches, dance routines and a lot of ridiculously enjoyable audience participation.

It's about as cutting edge as a blunt butter knife, but, in the words of my over-excited son, it is also "brilliantly brilliant - even more brilliant than Dick and Dom".

In kid terms, that is high praise indeed.

Updated: 10:58 Monday, February 14, 2005