AN armed robbery, crazed knifemen and criminal pensioners – you could say it was a typical night in Runcorn as one of Warrington’s oldest theatre groups performed the Ladykillers at the Brindley.

The Centenary Theatre Company’s latest production sees the Bafta-winning 1950s film, starring Alec Guinness, retold via Father Ted creator Graham Linehan’s reimagining of the black comedy as a stage play.

Widower Mrs Wilberforce and her temperamental parrot gain a new lodger in the form of gentlemanly conductor Professor Marcus, whose string quartet use the pensioner’s home as a practice space.

But all is not as it seems for Mrs Wilberforce as it soon transpires that her quiet home life, ordinarily only interrupted by the rattling trains from nearby King’s Cross Station and her somewhat erroneous reports of crime to the beat bobby, has actually been invaded by a gang of robbers.

Not that the Ealing five are criminal masterminds – they are, in fact, the very opposite.

Professor Marcus is seemingly the only one among them that possesses a brain, conducting his fellow four conspirators as he would if they were actually a string quartet, and it is his brainwave that sees them recruit Mrs Wilberforce as an unwitting accomplice.

Patsy Roberts gives the star performance as Mrs Wilberforce, while Tom Evans shines as he attempts to engineer the group’s tip-toeing around her and her beloved parrot without arousing suspicion.

A gaggle of well-to-do older ladies – including Christine MacLean as Mrs Tromleyton – who visit Mrs Wilberforce in order to hear a teatime concert from her new tenants are arguably the comedic highlight of the night.

Mike Hall must also be given praise for his set design – almost the entirety of the play is set inside Mrs Wilberforce’s home – with special praise for the special effects of the clouds of steam and swaying light fittings that announce the arrival of passing locomotives.

Littered with slapstick gags and inevitably ending in farce, the Centenary Theatre Company and the Ladykillers leave you smiling as you head home over the Runcorn Bridge for possibly the final time without being tolled.