Shut Your Eyes and Think of England

You can usually rely on Keighley Playhouse to begin its season by reducing audiences to fits of laughter.

Shut Your Eyes and Think of England follows this fine tradition with a hilarious, though implausible, blend of finance and farce.

The setting is a penthouse suite above the offices of one of the City of London's biggest investment firms. Sir Justin Holbrook is entertaining a call-girl when he receives a succession of unwelcome visitors.

An Arab sheikh has threatened to pull billions of pounds out of the UK economy -- ruining the country -- unless he is allowed to take over the firm. Sir Justin falls ill and his weedy accountant has to take on his identity in order to seal the deal.

Enter one doctor, one Jewish lawyer, a double-dealing politician and two real wives, in addition to a fake one being played by the call-girl.

The result is a lot of laughter, generated by eight actors and one producer pulling together as a well-polished unit. David Hardman and his cast are on tip-top form, quite a lot better than the script they are working from.

Great farces have tight structures and clever situations, ensuring even the most preposterous twists have a frenetic but satisfying logic.

This play instead takes the easy way out, often relying on the stupidity of one character to get another out of a tight squeeze.

As a result the action veers toward the impossible rather than just the implausible, making the second act less funny than the first. But don't worry -- it is still very funny and Shut Your Eyes and Think of England makes for a highly enjoyable evening.

Performances continue tonight and tomorrow, 7.30pm. Phone 01535 604764 to check ticket availability.

David Knights