He is best known for his Saturday teatime tenures as the love-torn priest in Ballykissangel and the emigrating vet in Wild at Heart.

But Stephen Tompkinson's heart is really rooted in comedy, as anyone who remembers his manic on-the-scene reporter Damian Day in Drop the Dead Donkey will testify.

Now he takes on one of the greatest theatrical comic characters of all time, as the title role in the Victorian farce Charley's Aunt.

The play follows Oxford lads Charley and Jack, who want to declare their love to two rather ravishing ladies.

According to social convention, they need to have a chaperone present when they meet the objects of their desire.

So when Charley's Brazilian aunt announces she is to pay her nephew a surprise visit, it looks like their prayers have been answered.

When she appears to cancel at the last minute the lads turn to old friend Lord Fancourt Babberly, played by Stephen, to don a dress and masquerade as Donna Lucia D'Alvadorez from Brazil - "where the nuts come from" - to make sure the romantic tete a tetes take place.

Emmy Award-winning comedian Mel Smith is directing this new stage version of the farce, having previously directed his comedy partner Griff Rhys Jones in an Olivier Award-winning performance in 1984.

Mel even played the title role himself when Griff fell sick during the run.

The tour follows Mel's much-publicised return to the stage after a 20-year gap when he played Winston Churchill at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

As he puts it: "I'm going back to my first love."

Duncan Hall

  • 7.45pm, 2.30pm matinees Thur & Sat, from £16, 08700 606650