EVEN at 6ft 3in plus heels, the sight of writer-actor Simon Williams dressed as a woman draws little more than polite amusement. The "man forced to adopt women's garb" comedy plot is a familiar one - in this case, Williams is a stiff-shirted, lovelorn statistician with a stutter called Leonard, who has found fame as Myrtle the romantic novelist.

All is fine until reality TV host Letitia (Joanna van Gyseghem, who takes the role originally destined for Sylvia Sims) decides to track down Myrtle for inclusion in the programme Mind Your Own Business.

Where Williams scores highest is the constant barrage of puns, quips and badinage with which he imbues his performance, aided by our understanding of today's electronic aids and their glitches. Mobile phones, cam-links, fly-on-the-wall filming and computer programs which mix up Myrtle's recorded voice with Nicholas Parsons' are neatly punched into the comedy mix. This is assisted by equipping Leonard with a decorous runaway wife, Fran, (Louise Jameson) who doesn't know Myrtle's true identity, an old rogue father Gus (Bernard Kay) and a feisty and secretly pregnant daughter Dee Dee (Chloe Newsome) who do.

Even in today's liberated times, Leonard worries about being a "gender bender offender", although you do fear for a "woman of the world" who thinks the G-spot is a piece of furniture. However, Myrtle's most valued piece of advice earned applause in its own right: "You can spice up a dull man, but you can't housetrain a bastard". Pity so few think it's true.

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Published: 11/11/2004