TOM Stoppard, the Pocklington School old-boy with the Czechoslovakian heritage, marries European Absurdist theatre to those English stage favourites, the thriller and the farce, in The Real Inspector Hound.

Written in 1968, this play within a play is a typically smart theatrical device by Stoppard, who delights in keeping one move head of the audience over 70 serpentine minutes.

The play opens with two theatre critics, the labrador-keen Moon (Ben Stamp) and the more jaded Birdboot (Luke Dunford), awaiting the start of a new thriller that will turn out to be a thoroughly mediocre piece of work. Watching from the front row, with their facial expressions being shown close-up on a video projection, they are waiting too for the arrival of Higgs (Jonny Holbek), the doyen of critics. Where is he, and who is that body hidden under the drawing-room sofa, absentmindedly pushed forward by Mrs Drudge (Lizzy Hope), the eccentric housemaid at Muldoon Manor?

As Moon and the chocolate-chomping Birdboot pass comment on the play, and on the status of critics, petty jealousies emerge and bleed into the ropey thriller developing on stage. Dashing Simon Gasgoyne (Martin Blake) has both young Felicity Cunningham (Eleri Jones) and the lady of the manor, Lady Cynthia Muldoon (Freya Grummitt) vowing to kill him; the wheelchair-bound Major Magnus (Dominic Platt) looks as shifty as his moustache. Gasgoyne snuffs it, and here comes the stentorian Inspector Hound (Joe Mills) to establish the facts.

Suddenly, Birdboot and then Moon are drawn into the play, until the farcical drama becomes a ghastly reality for the pair of them. Your critic felt somewhat nervous he could be next into the firing line.

John Cooper, director of Stagecoach Youth Theatre York, has chosen The Real Inspector Hound for his young charges for a couple of reasons: "Its superb use of language and comedy timing".

Neither is easy to master, however, because the language swings between wordy erudition and deliberately trite, awkward dialogue in the murder mystery, and the best comic timing is instinctive.

So, in Cooper tradition, he has assigned the production to a young cast with an average age of only 14, and consequently there is a feel of Alan Parker's Bugsy Malone to the playful performance.

Ben Stamp, who must wade his way through a swamp of words, rises well to the challenge of playing the flustered Moon; Luke Dunford's Birdboot is suitably hang-dog in Tony Hancock vein; Freya Grummitt will surely graduate to elegant Noel Coward drawing-room comedies; and Lizzy Hope relishes the madness within Mrs Drudge, never missing the chance to go over the top.

The Real Inspector Hound, Stagecoach Studio Theatre, Trinity Hall, York, until Saturday, February 14. Box office: 01904 674675.

Updated: 11:20 Thursday, February 12, 2004