If undemanding but amusing summer fare is what you want, you will get it at the Theatre Royal this week.

Paul Nicholas and Ian Ogilvy team up for some jolly fun in Eric Chappell's timeless comedy.

It is, indeed, so timeless it could have been written at almost any time since the Fifties and it will make you smile rather than have you laughing out loud.

It is a tale of two couples on holiday in Spain, who somehow find themselves with a holdall containing £500,000 in cash.

Both couples are torn: Do they keep it, do they turn it in and what do they do when the villain turns up to collect it?

Nicholas and Ogilvy are engaging and both have enough experience to make you smile with just a gesture, a shrug of the shoulders or a shake of the head.

Both men look significantly older than they did on television at their peak but Nicholas retains his boyishness and is still a charmer.

Ogilvy retains The Saint's good looks and suavity and the two actors are better together than they are apart.

Snakes And Ladders is a farce that isn't a farce.

No one drops their trousers, although Ogilvy is seen in a bathrobe. But the comings and goings through doors and terrace windows have a farcical element and what happens to the holdall is remarkably like what might happen in a true farce.

Judy Boxton's Fay, wife to Nicholas' Sam, hits a hysterical note and stays there but Ogilvy's filly, Dodie, gives Rachel Rhodes a wonderful chance to play a bimbo, which she does well.

Stealing the show for me is Peter G Reed who plays Mad Dog Moon, seen only too briefly but highly effectively.

Chappell is the writer of the TV sitcoms Rising Damp and Duty Free. Snakes And Ladders owes much more to the latter than the former and the cast is capable of much better work.

But I doubt anybody will be too disappointed with this amiable and unpretentious comedy which is ideal for an undemanding summer evening. You will come out smiling.

For tickets, call 01273 328488.