IF you want to escape the current doom and gloom hanging over the country for a couple of hours, get along to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford in the next couple of days for a real pick-me-up.

Noises Off, Michael Frayn's award-winning comedy, is celebrating its 21st birthday with a six-month Royal National Theatre tour, and this is definitely one party you'd be mad to miss.

The play is a farce within a farce, with the real-life actors playing fictional actors playing fictional characters.

In Act One they are rehearsing - badly - the typical British country house farce Nothing On, prior to opening in Weston-super-Mare.

In the Second Act, the set turns 180 degrees so that we see a performance from the perspective of backstage as the actors try to put on a matinee performance, while giving full vent to their internal feuds and jealousies.

This is a theatrical tour-de-force in which the action onstage in Nothing On collides hilariously with the action backstage in Noises Off.

The final act is set three months into the tour as the onstage farce collapses in on itself, exposing the real farce of the actors struggling to keep the show on the road.

This is a deliciously funny evening throughout, with a superb cast led by Paul Bradley, Cheryl Campbell, Philip Franks and Sylvester McCoy, producing some of the most sublime comic performances you could ever wish to see.

Noises Off is at the RST until Saturday, March 15. Tickets 0870 609 1110. It will be in Malvern from April 28 to May 3.

REVIEW BY MARK JESSOP