AFTER more than 100 years since it was first performed, 'Charley's Aunt' by Brandon Thomas is still pulling in the audiences. And at the Theatre Royal Windsor, the latest incarnation of this classic piece of English comedy continues to deserve praise.

Of course, when the stars include Eric Sykes, Christopher Biggins, Francis Matthews and Nyree Dawn Porter plus quality showings by Dominic Kemp, Richard Hodder, Charlotte Parry, Stephanie Chambers and Tilly Gaunt then entertainment should be guaranteed.

But it is Neil Mullarkey who steals this production as Lord Fancourt Babberley and 'Charley's Aunt'. His impersonation to replace a late arriving aunt in a desperate attempt to provide the necessary chaperone for the two students to entertain two young girls, is masterful.

Once he is dressed in the Victorian equivalent of a withdrawing room, he plays the role for all it is worth with a great deal of skill but also a casualness of style that has the audience eating out of his hand.

Eric Sykes is wonderful as the college scout, bumbling on and off stage and easily providing laugh after laugh - his turning of a squeaking trolley into the supermarket equivalent and the banging of a dinner gong are side-splitting.

There are three set changes and two intervals which help the recovery from laughter, but the entertainment is maintained despite the well expected ending. Precise timing and speed of action also contribute to this production, and even Eric's forgotten lines at the start of Act III turned into yet another house full of laughter. Neil Mullarkey even succumbed when he couldn't light a cigar and added to the script: "I've been dressed as a woman for so long, I've even forgotten how to light a cigar."

Everyone on stage played their part to make this one of the best comedies I've seen on stage for a long time - I thoroughly recommend it to everyone.