What a piece of absolute… nonsense. Turn off the pun-counter (it’ll overheat) and leave your cynicism at the door. Spy Movie is so stuffed full of wordplay, clowning, farce, props (so many props) and proper jokes that you might need a little lie-down afterwards. The premise is… sort of complicated actually, so buckle up. Albert Cabbage is making a spy movie but he’s run out of money so now it’s a play but the leading man has left and it absolutely can’t be set in space because that’s stupid but big investor Gary is in the audience (or is he?) so let’s just do the show right here. But mainly: Agent Blonde, Jane Blonde, has 24 hours to save the world. Of course she has.

What follows can only be described as a romp through all the spy movie tropes, written by Matthew Howell and Jack Michael Stacey (who tellingly met while performing The Play That Goes Wrong) and must have found time to study the classic British farce along the way. The pace never lets up and the cast, all playing multi-characters, never fail to commit to the bit even as things go wrong in real-time. This is, of course, vital: the merest suspicion that they’re outside the joke would derail the whole thing, so hats fall off, props don’t always appear quite where they’re needed and everyone just rolls with it in a beguilingly clever play that’s beautifully performed, but above all funny. Properly, laugh out loud funny. 

Spy Movie: The Play!, Pleasance Courtyard, until 25 August, 12.55pm.