David Callister gives a superb comic performance as inept Inspector Pratt in Peter Gordon's spoof Secondary Cause of Death.

Callister, benefiting from the excellent direction of Patric Kearns who encourages his talented cast to ham it up, delivers a stream of side-splittingly funny malapropisms and puns.

This second often hilarious play in Gordon's whodunit trilogy gets off to a ponderous start but soon picks up pace thanks to the wonderful timing of Callister and real life husband and wife Jeffrey Holland and Judy Buxton.

Holland brilliantly takes on two roles as the doddery Colonel and his lookalike, flamboyant thespian Longfellow. He pulls off a slick switch when Longfellow dies and the Colonel appears immediately afterwards.

Buxton is involved in some clever verbal exchanges as three secret agents and five killings baffle Pratt.

The action takes place in 1939 in the library/sitting room of a country manor where few of the ten characters are who they seem.

A Polish Count (David Janson) turns out to be a German spy, while Henrietta (Liz Garland) is not just an army captain.

Michelle Morris, Megan Terry, Polly Smith and Melissa Clements add to the chaos as bodies keep piling up.

Four stars