It’s a bad sign when a comedy show feels the need to bribe its audience with chocolate at the start.

And so it proved with Ship Of Fools’ From The Cradle To The Bin, an agonisingly unfunny show based around a rundown retirement home.

The one resident, the well-spoken and uncomplaining Mr Whitey, is forced to live in a wheelie bin - to be tormented by the sadistic Raoul, sexually abused by the money-obsessed director and exploited by his selfish daughter. Not forgetting a visit by his strait-jacketed hyperactive grandson Bobby.

One central conceit seems to be the elderly are hilarious – what with their getting old and obsession with silly little things to stave off death.

Elsewhere there are “jokes” about 9/11, terminal illness, AIDS and ADHD. And if it all gets a bit sticky a cast member’s clothes are removed.

Occasionally the story – for what it is – is abandoned, purely so the cast can go into an unrelated diversion, or on one instance perform an excruciating version of The Birdie Song.

The laughs are few or non-existent for what is supposed to be a comedy show –and if it is supposed to be a satire on the care system the targets are way too obvious and an insult to all those who do look after the elderly.

One star