A RAY Cooney farce is never something to be taken on by the faint-hearted - and that includes the audience.
Countless plot twists, numerous shocks and scares and frenetic action, all performed at break-neck speed are the order of the day for Cooney's award-winning romp Out of Order, now showing at Guildford's Yvonne Arnaud Theatre.
Delving into the very nineties world of politics and sleaze, Out of Order follows most, if not all, of the rules of a classic farce.
Set in a suite at the posh Westminster Hotel, Allo Allo star Gorden Kaye is junior government minister Richard Willey, all set to spend a night of passion with one of the secretaries for the opposition, Jane Worthington (Ruth Burton).
But the audience hardly has time to get comfortable in their seats before the mayhem begins and, from that point on, its flat out all the way until the final curtain falls on a breathless cast.
Not even the interval seems to slow things up - as soon as the curtain rises again, the actors simply pick up exactly where they left off.
A body, a slamming bedroom window and the post-interval introduction of Jane's husband Ronnie (Paul Betts) and Richard's wife Pamela (Deborah Watling) are all added ingredients and there is much of the 'out one door, in another door' that makes farce so exhausting.
It does mean that timing is everything and the cast of Out of Order manage admirably to keep up the necessary pace. Only at a couple of points does the action seem to float a little.
As more and more deceptions go disastrously wrong, Richard and his personal secretary George (ex-Are You Being Served star Trevor Bannister) entomb themselves in an impossible web of white lies and tall tales.
It is a finely crafted piece of work, of that there is no doubt - anything that complicated needs to be but the ending arrives with a rather sudden bang, leaving you wondering what hit you.
However, as well as Kaye and Bannister, who bear the brunt of the frantic action, there are fine performances from ex-Doctor Who Colin Baker as an increasingly harassed hotel manager and Henry McGee, who is excellent as the room-service waiter.
Out of Order is solid, standard farce fare given a modern-day twist from one of the master writers of the genre. Just don't go expecting to have an easy time of it.