★★★★★ In place of a traditional fairy-tale style character Briggs’ Santa is a regular proletarian working man who enjoys his tea, dotes on his pets and needs the loo in the morning. This, of course, provides great material for a theatrical version . . .

★★★★☆ Each show is different and given an identifying number: this one is People Show 137. It’s tricky to categorise them and that’s probably how they like it. I won’t be the first to describe them as surreal, Pythonesque, but they started in 1966, 3 years before Monty Python.

★★★☆☆ It’s a highly entertaining, hour-long show and Doherty is certainly skilful at what he does in managing to portray such a variety of characters. My favourites were the yuppie prince, the cabin boy and the bug-eyed monster. The accents, whilst corny, are effective and amusing.

★★★★☆ A married couple go at each other as if they’ve hated one another for their whole 21 years of marriage. Bickering; insulting and rude; the jibes and taunts come out like pellets from a gun in a kids cartoon.