Eric and Ernie would be proud

Foley - who looks uncannily like Morecambe with his spectacles on - knows that it is the tribute or nothing and so deludes McColl into thinking his play will get its debut, hoping to coax him round to play Ernie at the last minute.

You might think that even the most confident of comedy acts would be committing professional suicide in attempting to imitate the legendary Morecambe and Wise.

Yet somehow, Foley and McColl manage to pull it off.

Their usual straight man/funny man routines and Vaudeville-style farce were never a million miles away from the nation's favourites.

And it takes a few minutes to get into the swing of such old-fashioned comedy, with its "so bad it's funny" jokes and slapstick physical theatre.

But you cannot help warming to the hapless duo: Foley prancing around the stage doing various silly walks that would make John Cleese proud, and McColl's wide-eyed stupidity.

Sue Johnston is the put-upon celebrity guest

They acknowledge their heroes who pulled in "30 million viewers a year every Christmas" but there is a jovial, irreverent tone that avoids charges of servility.

Ultimately though, it is Foley's mate, Arthur - Toby Jones - who steals the show, dressing up in various hilarious guises, such as the camp theatre manager, the even camper producer and the lovely Darryl Hannah, to fool McColl.

Arthur's soliloquises about his mother asking him to play the harmonica on her deathbed could have come straight from the League of Gentleman and had the audience in hysterics.

Another treat is the mystery celebrity guest, on this occasion The Royle Family star Sue Johnston, a consummate professional who is brought in to star in McColl's play and is sent up at every opportunity. Ring any bells?

Unlike some of their earlier work, there is no serious undercurrent beneath this production, unless you count McColl and Foley's conclusion that they cannot survive without each other.

A more interesting question would be: "Can they survive without Arthur?"

Perhaps not, but there is no doubt that this show relentlessly entertains from start to finish as it hurtles you past joke after joke with little recovery time. The two hours really fly by.

Fittingly, the duo ended with a rendition of Bring Me Sunshine, leaving the audience with a warm nostalgic glow as they left the theatre.

I think Eric and Ernie would have approved.

The Play What I Wrote is on at Wyndham's theatre, London.