AN actress stripped off on stage as a theatre group celebrated its 20th anniversary.

Here Barrie Jerram reviews Spymonkey’s show, Cooped.

Worthing Theatres, in conjunction with Brighton Festival, is celebrating the 20th anniversary of Spymonkey, the multi-award-winning, Brighton-based physical comedy troupe.

Cooped sends up the genre of the Gothic novella – a lonely country house, a frightened damsel, a mad butler and a handsome hero with a split personality.

From this scenario, four actors, Aitor Basauri, Stephan Kreiss, Petra Massey and Toby Park, produce an evening of sheer lunacy and inventive zaniness.

There are hilarious visual gags, puns galore, magic tricks and exhausting physical slapstick comedy.

And as if this is not enough there are bizarre interludes of pure surrealism – a flying Madonna, a re-told Good Samaritan story and the one that had the audience screaming with laughter – the rude ballet number set in the Garden of Eden where the fig leaves are too small.

As brilliant as the show is its humour will not appeal to everyone.

Sadly there are times when lack of audibility proves to be a problem as well as some of the jokes being over-extended.