I can count on one hand the number of theatre companies who've reduced me to happy tears with a comedy show.

There has been Peepolykus, with their absurdly brilliant Goose Nights at Komedia, the utter genius of The Right Size's Bewilderness at the Corn Exchange and now the joyously silly Cooped from Spymonkey.

A unique fusion of spoof Hammer Horror, Carry On capers and surreal Pythonesque fun, the play follows the slapstick adventure of poor orphan Laura Du Lay who is sent to work as a secretary for a reclusive aristocrat in a creepy old mansion.

Comedy gold oozes from a bizarre plot, which sees Laura falling in love with her boss while battling to control severe flatulence problems and shaking fits.

Like everything else in this play, the plot is purposefully over-the-top and is regularly lost among the romping tomfoolery.

From butt-naked whizzies and ladypowered ping pong firing to what must be Brighton Festival's longest on-stage fart, this riotous approach to physical comedy is what Spymonkey do best.

There are also shamelessly naff but brilliantly funny dream sequences which see Laura becoming a Crouching Tiger-style ninja fighter and, most brilliantly, a Russian Jewess.

Quite why the Jewess scene is so hilarious I'm not sure. Maybe it's the bum-kicking or the wig-stealing, or maybe simply the joy of having no idea why you're laughing, which makes it such fun.

Based in Brighton and fresh from performing with Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas, the company triumph in pure originality and inventiveness. They also shake up theatrical convention like a snow globe, making wooden acting, bad jokes and overplaying to the audience their unique selling point.

The stage trickery is simple but charmingly imaginative. You can't help but giggle as the cardboard car pulls up outside the window or when a hunt arrives complete with waggling hounds' tails and a bodyless horse head.

Although first performed at Komedia back in 2001, Cooped has lost none of its cheeky sparkle. If you ever thought the Brighton Festival was highbrow or elitist, go and see Cooped, it might just change your mind.

Until Saturday, May 27. Tickets cost £6-£15, call 01273 709709