What will it take to shut Jeffrey Archer up? Not even the thick walls of HMP Belmarsh can silence the lying lord.

First we had the book of his prison experience. Now those memoirs have been dramatised by the actor Mike Darnell. And, irritatingly, the disgraced peer continues to charm.

Darnell has written an excellent, witty play and his performance was confident and effortless.

Although a warm and sympathetic portrayal of Archer, it is not self-pitying.

Rather, the one-man play is a balance of dry comedy and a gentle, if serious, probing of the British penal system.

Much of the comedy comes from the incongruity of Archer in the unforgiving confines of Belmarsh.

Oliver Twist would have rejected the prison potatoes, we were told.

As he came to dinner one night, a fellow inmate inquired: "Your usual table, milord?"

I thoroughly enjoyed the evening but it was due to the superb Darnell, not Archer.