When Peter Cook's first wife saw West End show Pete And Dud: Come Again, she had only one complaint - her ex-husband didn't start smoking until he was 30.

Wendy Cook told the play's creators she was moved and that they had, "captured him perfectly".

This is pretty impressive when you consider the biographical film, Not Only But Always, which Cook felt emphasised the "banal and lavatorial" side of her ex's humour, drove her to write a biography simply to set the record straight.

Owen Lewis, the director of Pete and Dud: Come Again, also received a good luck card from Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller.

The pair, who worked with Moore and Cook on the hit 1960 Edinburgh Festival revue Beyond The Fringe, didn't make it to the show - but Lewis admits, "I imagine it would be very odd watching someone play you".

The show gathered warm reviews during its West End stint, with the only real complaint being that the format - an Eighties talk show- was "clunky".

But Lewis disagrees. He says that is exactly what allows the play to dip in and out of Moore and Cook's eventful lives, from Beyond the Fringe, the Not Only But Also television shows, the notorious Derek and Clive albums and, latterly, Cook's descent into alcoholism and Moore's ascent to Hollywood "sex thimble" status.

"It's a one-hour special on Dudley Moore," he explains. "He's just been nominated for an Oscar. The chat show host is a bit Terry Wogan, a bit Michael Parkinson and a bit Russell Harty - the best of all three. We see their best and worst moments but it's still very funny - painful but funny."

The writers, Chris Bartlett and Nick Awde, made the decision to steer clear of any of the pair's original material early on in the process.

"It would have been dramatically dull and you can't compete with the original Peter Cook and Dudley Moore.

"We've worked hard to recreate the seeds of an idea, like when we see the two of them in a meeting with a BBC producer for Not Only But Also, or when they're talking in a pub, which will eventually become the famous Pete and Dud sketch."

They also wanted to rebalance Moore's side of the story.

"The accepted wisdom is that he was the straight man to Peter's comedian, that Peter wrote the gags and Dudley fed him," he says. "But Dudley was absurdly hysterical and made the gags funnier. Pete was also cast as the bully and Dudley was the sweet victim, but their relationship was much more complex than that.

"Dudley was terribly annoying and his ambition frustrated Peter," he continues. "At the age of 22, Peter was writing for Kenneth Williams on Broadway and had performed in front of JFK. By 24, as he famously said, he'd run out of ambition."

So what would the well-educated son of a diplomat Cook and pint-sized working class, club-footed Moore make of this latest portrayal?

"We would probably get a gobful of abuse," he jokes. "No, honestly, I think they'd be pleased. There's an element of hero-worship in having a play written about you.

"Peter would probably be amused because it's very warts-and-all, and Dudley," he pauses. "Dudley would probably be aggravated.

Devonshire Park Theatre, Eastbourne, 7.45pm, £19.50-£15.50, 01323 412000