The casting is impeccable: James Fleet, who excels in a peculiarly British greasy nervousness, like Basil Fawlty with a prison record, is as uneasily conflicted as only a transvestite con-man could be. Ben Miller's pill-popping Louis is a thoroughly loveable rogue. But the crux of the story is dotty Mrs Wilberforce and Marcia Warren turns in a perfectly controlled performance, which gives old ladies everywhere hope that they can somehow triumph over penury, officialdom — and, of course, armed gangs.

This is also an occasion where the special effects and set designers deserve an extra round of applause. The Ladykillers offers pyrotechnics with a purpose and the combination of brilliant mechanicals (the police chase of the bank robbers is represented by remote control toy cars traversing a wall at glacial speed) and the pace is just on the manageable side of manic.

It slows down a bit in the last 20 minutes, not least due to the dramatic requirement of dispatching most of the cast by means of passing goods trains and freakish homicides, but leaves you with a feeling that you've seen a comedy almost devoid of error — and a mighty stitch in the side.

 Down at the National, the real Comedy of Errors has Lenny Henry as one of the lost twins, stranded in a dream-nightmare of mistaken identity and multiple confusions. Henry put up a manful performance as Othello when he turned from TV comedy to tragedy, and the National has had the obvious idea of letting Lenny be funny again. It's not his fault, but the result is a sporadically amusing mess.