MISCHIEF Theatre have plenty of laughs in the bank already from last autumn's visit to the Grand Opera House with The Play That Goes Wrong. Now they return to York with another hyperactive caper, The Comedy About A Bank Robbery.

This one is set in the summer of 1958, when a priceless diamond has been entrusted to Minneapolis City Bank and an escaped convict is dead set on pocketing the gem with the help of his screwball sidekick, trickster girlfriend and the maintenance man. Who will end up bagging the jewel amid the heap of mistaken identities, love triangles and hidden agendas?

Among the cast is Irish actor Seán Carey, who follows up taking on multiple roles in The Play That Goes Wrong by playing low-level pickpocket Sam Monaghan. "My family are from Meath, though my dad grew up around Yorkshire, so it's nice that I'll have lots of the family coming to York," he says. "My dad and my mum will be flying over too."

Seán is touring in a Mischief show for the first time after learning the company ropes as an understudy in "The Play..." in London. "I did pretty much all of the male roles when I was understudying: I covered five out of six! As an experience, I'd describe it as organised chaos, when I'd be in a scene where I'd played four of the five characters!" he says.

"The thing I found the most challenging was the sword fight between Max and Robert, where I had to learn that fight backwards as I had to play Max one night, then Robert the next, so I had to learn the moves backwards in a day! I played Max on the Friday, Robert on the Saturday and Perkins, the butler, on the Sunday, so I didn't know where I was that weekend."

When Seán moved to London three and a half years ago, The Play That Goes Wrong was the first show he saw. "I fell in love with it, got a job at the theatre [the Duchess Theatre], selling tickets and ice creams, and then contacted the Mischief director and finally, after a year of trying, they brought me in as an understudy," he recalls.

"Luck is when opportunity meets preparation, the saying goes, and I always thought 'you'll get this chance', but you have to be ready for it."

Seán grabbed that opportunity to the max, so much so that Mischief asked him to be in the touring company for The Comedy About A Bank Robbery. "I didn't have to go back and re-climb the ladder for this role," he says. "What I love about Mischief is that as a company they're very loyal and they like to keep it as a family."

He is following in the footsteps of Dave Hearn, who originated the roles of both Max and Sam Monaghan, and is making his own mark on playing Sam while respecting the Mischief template. "It's challenging in a different way doing this show because when you play a different role each night, it's always fresh, but if you're playing only one role throughout the tour you have to keep finding fresh things in it," says Seán. "The good thing is that the show is always different every night and you have to give a different performance each time."

Comparing the comedic styles of The Play That Goes Wrong and The Comedy About A Bank Robbery, he says: "The 'Play' is very British, very Monty Python; this is more like the Airplane movies of the Eighties.

"If it was set now, rather than in 1958, all you'd need for a robbery is a laptop and I don't think anyone wants to watch a laptop for two and a half hours! Mischief wanted to go down the route of a diamond heist caper and make it as inventive as possible with car chases and a jailbreak sequence and even a love story for my character, who falls in love with the bank manager's daughter. I'm covered in sweat by the end; my character suffers a lot but I'm having an absolute ball."

Mischief Theatre in The Comedy About A Bank Robbery, Grand Opera House, York, February 5 to 9, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday matinees. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york

Charles Hutchinson

Fact File on The Comedy About A Bank Robbery

1. Latest comedy caper from Mischief Theatre, mischief-makers of multi-award-winning The Play That Goes Wrong, the calamitous show that visited York Theatre Royal in April 2014 and Grand Opera House, York, last May.

2. Nominated for Olivier Award; booking into third year in West End; now on first UK and Ireland tour. Played Leeds Grand Theatre last October.

3. Show features 1950s' songs performed live by cast.

4. Taking inspiration from vintage slapstick comedy, each performance contains 127 hits, 12 knock-outs, 11 doors slammed in faces and 14 fake moustaches.