THE dramatist Peter Shaffer is not best known for light comedy, but in Lettice and Lovage he created a veritable souffle of inventiveness and laughter. It has now opened at the Crypt in a production which richly deserves to be seen and enjoyed.

The two main characters are ladies of mature years. Lettice is a tour guide for visitors to stately English homes who finds her allotted mansion so dull that she embellishes its history with ever wilder invention. Charlotte is her boss at the Preservation Trust, who finds it necessary to sack her; not an auspicious beginning for the relationship about to develop.

Their paths cross again, and Lottie, severe and repressed, is drawn into the world of Lettice's unbridled imagination. History is theirs to explore, and they pursue its dramas to a stage which lands the former in hospital and the latter in court. Their progress is littered with laughter, and brings them to a conclusion which is at once logical and satisfying.

Deirdre Kinahan is a joy as Lettice; she can curl a lip and jutt ajaw in the manner of the comic greats like Joyce Grenfell and Margaret Rutherford, and acts with her entire body, a case of histrionics taken to the limit, but always superbly controlled. Maureen Collender is excellent as her straight man - person? - at first censuring her eccentricity but finally converted by it. Steve Curran has a nicely observed role as a bemused solicitor.

happened to see the first production of this play some years ago in London's West End, played with all the style and verve available to that great home of theatre. This production is at least as enjoyable, making light of the restrictions of the Crypt. John. Walsh's design, embellished by imaginative and detailed props, provides a good setting, and Joe Killick's direction, for the welcome new Tall Tales company, gets the most out of the comedy. Really good fun.