Goodnight From Him

Cabaret, satire and good fortune merged to create The Two Ronnies, as Roy Smiles points out in his excellent play Goodnight From Him. It charts the 20-year professional relationship of opposites Corbett and Barker through inventive reworkings of their most famous skits.

So, for instance, in a reprisal of the class sketch, Barker looks up to Cleese because although he has more money he cannot speak Latin or spell 'xenophobia'.

Aidan McArdle plays Corbett with the familiar, emphatic phrasing, while Robert Daws' Barker is reticent and unstarry, like the original.

After works about Spike Milligan, Tony Hancock and Dad's Army, writer Roy Smiles once again plunders Britain's comedy heritage for this play about Ronnie Corbett (Aidan McArdle) and Ronnie Barker (Robert Daws).

Smiles uses the device of one of Corbett's monologues and parodies of their sketches to explore the differences in the two men and how they first met. The re-creation of the sketches has a novelty value for those who remember them, but often only serve to remind us how good the original Ronnies were. And having to explain gags that worked on screen ("you've thrown your drink over me") is plain uncomfortable.

An interesting curiosity, but the uneven structure and wayward impersonations ultimately make it rather disappointing.