Spymonkey's Moby Dick

Lying on his deathbed, Edmund Kean apparently said: 'Dying is easy, comedy is hard.' He had a good point. Comedy is a notoriously tricky thing to get right on stage and few companies have done it with such consistent success as Brighton-based Spymonkey. Its three previous highly acclaimed productions have all been directed by 'Mighty Boosh' associate Cal McCrystal. However, for its latest outing, a decidedly surreal and absurd take on Melville's classic tale of the sea, Spymonkey has teamed up with founder member of Theatre de Complicite, Jos Houben. The result is a triumph of madness.

Looser and more chaotic than its earlier work, the whole thing is played in the excitable hinterlands of delirium. Hysterically funny from start to finish, the show is presented as a new work by Compagnie Tony Parks, a pretentious ensemble of European non-actors. This play within a play sways and staggers from disaster to catastrophe as the four actors attempt to play all the members of the crew of Ahab's doomed whaling ship, Pequod. This loose interpretation of the time-honoured masterpiece is a masterclass in physical comedy, sublime lunacy and exquisitely silly wordplay.

Aitor Basauri, Petra Massey, Toby Park and Stephan Kreiss are probably four of the greatest clowns currently working in British theatre. Singing mermaids, dancing sea anemones and a strangely moving, spectacular finale all combine to make a vaudevillian tour de force.