Zestful farce is never out of date and although the story first wowed cinema goers of the 1950s, this fresh version of the classic Ealing Studios’ original has plenty to offer. Applying what he calls ‘the dynamite principle’ (first, blow the whole thing up), the playwright has restructured the story of a heist gone hilariously wrong into a couple of hours of frenetic stage work, retaining the brilliantly mismatched quintet of robbers and their unwitting nemesis in the person of their little old landlady.

Lacking the fluidity of film, the play relies on vivid characters and farcical scenes played with high gusto – territory where director Ross Gumbley has set his mark of authority so often. He could not have hoped for a more engagingly disparate band of baddies. All of them are posing as musicians needing a rehearsal space where they will not be interrupted as they go about their real business to finalise The Plan and make their getaway with a trunk full of cash. 

Nominally in control, is a smooth talking Professor Marcus, ‘self-professed criminal mastermind’. He is played with inventive élan by Philip Aldridge, desperately keeping disaster at bay, beguiling the landlady and finding ever more outrageous solutions to the complications she innocently presents. 

The lady character comes in the form of Mrs Wilberforce, played by the splendid Rima Te Wiata as a model of genteel propriety and mistress of an alarming macaw, always kept under cover, but decidedly audible. Tim Bartlett is the quintessential genial copper, Constable Macdonald, fetched in yet again to deal with her fanciful concerns. He is there with his trusty notebook, pencil duly licked, as the play opens and his daft reassurances wind it up.

The gang that assembles to ‘rehearse’ with the Professor is made up of four colourful crims. Con man Major Courtney, neatly delivered by Geoffrey Heath, is all politesse, while Louis Harvey, from Dan Bain, provides a saturnine and broodily exotic Romanian contrast.

The heavy of the would-be team is John Bach’s stolid One-Round, ex-boxer, gravel voiced and not given to quick thinking. On the other hand, chirpy cockney Harry Robinson from Andrew Ford is riddled with pills and nerves, as well as given to obsessive polishing of the furniture. All in all we are handed a rich, deluxe assortment.

Mrs Wilberforce’s room to let has been chosen because it overlooks the busy railway line from London to Newcastle. Harold Moot’s set evokes the grimy brick exterior and determinedly prim interior where it all takes place. Lighting design from Giles Tanner and sound design from Sean Hawkins are an active support, especially as the train rumbles through. Completing the design team, costume from Stephen Robertson underscores each character and role very effectively.

For all the impact of the actors and production team, the first half – where the robbery is planned, goes right and then wrong – feels laboured until the last scene before the interval. At that point, an urgently improvised concert for Mrs Wilberforce’s wonderfully dotty friends (not named in the programme, but very entertaining) reboots the play.

The second half, which deals more directly with the problem of the landlady herself, generates more tension and momentum, so that escalating farce and the delightful irony of who gets to keep the booty can really flourish.

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