OKAY, so you're more likely to get a custard pie in the eye than Harrison Ford's fist - luckily, for me, it was the former - but the very last thing you'll do is sulk during this show.

Quite why the diminutive Barry and brother Paul are the comedy gems of family entertainment may well be revealed in a biography about to be published by Stuart Clarkson, who followed them on a previous theatre tour from Edinburgh to Plymouth.

Darlington audiences particularly love the Chuckles because it was during panto in the town that the hard-working pair from Rotherham changed children's TV with Chucklevision.

And it's hardly surprising to see TV cameras capturing show highlights which will delight DVD buyers this Christmas.

Twenty years on in TV, and 40 years of Chucklemania on stage, gives them a licence to laugh which only the greats like Ken Dodd can surpass.

The main contents are elements of magic tricks, a 12 days of Christmas-style song and the "it's behind you" throat-warmer warnings demanded from children as a gorilla and a couple of avenging mummies thunder around the set.

But all Paul and Barry have to do is say "hello" to guarantee screams of laughter as the pair doff a fedora in the direction of Egyptian amusement.

With Paul now touching 60, Barry beyond the retirement age and two older brothers of Jimmy, 75, and Brian, 73, adding more mayhem, this is way more effort than Mr Ford and Sean Connery ever put into the Indiana Jones franchise.

But you can't put a price on Chuckles, ancient or modern.

* The show continues its run today (May 30) at The Journal Tyne Theatre, Newcastle. Box Office: 0844-493-9999