I WAS fortunate enough to have already seen The Comedy About A Bank Robbery in London, so was thrilled to see it was coming to Edinburgh, writes the Times theatre critic Kerry Black..

However, I was worried how a touring show could possibly duplicate the energy and sass of the original. Fear not, this week’s production at The King’s Theatre, Edinburgh replicates the sheer lunacy and physicality of Mischief Theatre’s latest hilarious West End hit!

Last year Mischief brought The Play That Goes to Wrong to the Festival Theatre to great acclaim and packed audiences and it is fair to say that this show is even more bonkers! While it could easily be described as a pastiche of 1950’s Americana, it goes way beyond this!

With it’s cartoon like sets, hairstyles and catchy doo-wop musical score, Mischief have stretched the warped boundaries of their fetid imagination even further than before. I can just imagine their cast adverts, saying something like, “Actors Wanted: Must be prepared to play everything from a convicted jail bird, to a timid bank clerk, to about forty other characters all with different accents, ages and clothing. Must enjoy dangling dangerously over a stage while wearing a variety of moustaches”!

I can honestly say I don’t think I have ever heard an opening night audience laugh so much in my life, as the incredible cast hurtled us through every scenario possible, from a jail break, via a chase, to a bedroom farce all peppered with greed as everyone in a small town tries to steal the ultimate prize of a rip-roaring diamond!

There are gags galore, galloping dogs and enough flurries of seagulls to excite Hitchcock himself, although “Simon” says that no actual livestock were sacrificed during the performances.

It’s inventive, raucous, with a pun-peppered script that rattles along at a breathless pace. It’s worth the entry money just to see the outrageously hilarious and immaculately timed bedroom scene!

The entire cast work their socks off but I particularly enjoyed the man-eating Caprice (Julia Frith in a mind boggling professional debut), the weedy woebegone Warren (Jon Trenchard) and Sean Carey as the conniving Sam. By the finale while you may struggle to know your Freeboys from your Three Boys, you can rest assured that in this town everyone’s a crook!

The Comedy About A Bank Robbery is on at Edinburgh King’s Theatre until Saturday 18th May at 7.30pm nightly plus matinees. It would be criminal to miss it!