In this age of high-tech theatrical wizardry, it is hard to imagine that two men chatting and singing at a piano on a bare stage could sell out theatres in the West End, Broadway and round the world for a whole decade.

But Michael Flanders and Donald Swann did just that, about 40 years ago, with their individual style of sophisticated humour.

Flanders wrote the words and Swann composed the music.

They met at Westminster School and there wrote their first revue. For eight years, they wrote more than 200 satirical songs for revues such as Airs on a Shoestring and for other performers, including Joyce Grenfell and Ian Wallace.

Having often entertained friends with their amusing songs, Flanders and Swann decided the time was right to take to the stage performing their own songs and, on January 24, 1957, opened at the Fortune Theatre, off Drury Lane, London.

The critics all loved At The Drop of a Hat, the name chosen for their show. Michael Flanders always said he could write a song "at the drop of a hat".

There was no limit to the subject matter of the songs. Travel was a popular theme, with ditties about a London bus, the railways and travelling by tram - "Down a hill or round a bend, we would drive at either end".

Cannibals, letterboxes and the gas-man also underwent the Flanders and Swann treatment but best-loved were their animal songs.

The warthog, armadillo and elephant all had their habits put to song and, most famous of all, the gnu and the rhinoceros - "Mud, mud, glorious mud".

Flanders and Swann gave their final show on New Year's Eve, 1966, in New York. Flanders would have happily have carried on but Swann, a serious composer at heart, wanted more time for his composing.

George Martin, of Beatles fame, produced two long-playing records of Flanders and Swann and recorded their performances live. They capture to perfection the magic of At The Drop of a Hat.

-Michael Parker, Lewes Road, Brighton