There must be something in the water at the moment. Hot on the heels of the Inside No 9 team putting their comedy twosome episode Bernie Clifton's Dressing Room onstage in their West End show, another production opens which examines the serious/sad, push-pull, love/hate dynamic between duos.

Like Inside No 9's outing Mark Jagasia's The Double Act also centres on a team that has seen better days. In this case the fictional 1980s stars Biddle and Bash. On his way to his end of the pier show Billy Biddle (Nigel Betts) now solo, pitches up at the shabby flat where his one-time partner Clifford Bash (Nigel Cooke) now lives in grubby squalor with a snake called Agadoo and a helpful upstairs acquaintance called Gulliver who seems to be more carer than neighbour.

As the two meet up their history is unearthed and past traumas revisited. Why did they fall from grace when riding high? Was there something fundamentally wrong with their act or did times just change? Billy bitterly blames it on the likes of Ben Elton and alternative comedy. There is still an audience for his humour out there in the seaside resorts, but he knows he is a throwback. Maybe their material was racist and homophobic, though Cliff refuses to see it quite like that and shows us some of his outdated characters and accents so that we can decide for ourselves.

Jagasia's take on the dark side of comedy manages to have it both ways, with corny old jokes and corny new ones too. As Cliff reprises some of that old non-woke material it gets laughs even though we know it's unsavoury. Billy thinks he is more in tune with modern attitudes, having gone viral on TikTok: "I've caught the zeitgeist." "Is it contagious?"

The Double Act, directed by Oscar Pearce, covers plenty of terrain that has been covered before about the tensions that bubble to the surface when there is more than one ego vying for attention. I remember a play based on Peter Cook and Dudley Moore that captured the rivalry in that relationship well. There's more of a whiff of Larry Olivier in Osborne's bleakly comic The Entertainer here, though by comparison The Double Act pulls its punches a bit. 

Towards the end things spiral towards a conclusion that desn't quite work. The simplest options would be for them to reunite for one last hurrah or to have a good reason not to bury the hatchet. But the narrative arc here refuses to be that simple. Instead Jagasia goes for a Pinteresque finale that borders on the sinister and surreal. But that doesn't stop The Double Act from being a thought-provoking and grimly funny foray into a bygone showbiz age. 

Until February 22. Tickets and info here.

Picture by Alex Brenner

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