NOTHING like as fashionable as he was 25 years ago, Alan Ayckbourn is nevertheless writing at least as well now as he was then.

This is his 69th play and it is two-and-a-half hours of pure, undemanding joy.

Arnold (a brilliantly bumbling performance from John Branwell) is the chair of an amateur writers’ group, whose members are a pretty diverse lot.

Brevis is the sour ex-teacher, writing a musical version of Pilgrim’s Progress and sniping at sci-fi efforts from Clem that boast more malapropisms than mystery. Then there’s Jess, the farmer with writer’s block; Grace the mousy housewife with illustrations for her Doblin The Goblin, but no story, and bubbly Vivvi, who just can’t stop churning out detective thrillers.

Genius

Arnold himself writes nothing more creative than instruction manuals, but his young housekeeper, Ilsa, still worships him as some sort of creative genius.

The first half is pure, closely-observed character comedy, done with effortless grace. But this is all nothing more than a slow build to act two, where mayhem breaks loose when three of the group’s stories suddenly burst into chaotic life around the totally bemused Arnold.

A Victorian romance collides with a 1930s murder mystery and a sci-fi alien abduction in an hysterical farce that has the cast of seven making like 70.

Directed by Ayckbourn, with his own company from Scarborough, this is as good as it gets.