COMEDY is in the timing, and the timing is not always spot on early in a run. Such is the lottery of seeing Dick Turpin, The Panto ride into town before it has settled into the saddle.

Catching up with Berwick Kaler’s 30th anniversary extravaganza for a second time two nights ago, the show remains the “most historically incorrect pantomime of all time”, it still loses the plot in the long first half, and the second half is one of the most consistently funny hours of comedy, dance, song and mayhem ever created by Kaler and co-director Damian Cruden.

The interplay between characters and the physicality of the show have moved on apace, particularly in David Leonard’s hair-swishing, hip-swivelling performance as the forever thwarted villain, Count Vermin De Vile, in his 21st year.

Vincent Gray’s dandy Dick Turpin and his leaping Irish leprechaun dancers are a delight, and not to be outdone, Turpin’s horse Black Bess (Jamie Harris and Brendan Lucas) steals not only the film scene but the courtroom scene too.

The looning Martin Barrass and Kaler’s best water slapstick scene in years has the added impact of a misbehaving air-blowing apparatus; Kaler’s Amy Winehouse send-up has grown madder still; and Suzy Cooper’s return is comedy gold, as she stretches the boundaries of the principal girl into playing an old hag, a bat, Ozzy Osbourne and even Dorothy in The Wizard Of Oz.

Oh, and look out for A J Powell’s legs in the Bucks Fizz spoof: girls would die for them.

* Dick Turpin, The Panto, York Theatre Royal, until January 31. Box office: 01904 623568.