By Joy Watters at Dundee Rep

DELIGHTED TO announce the safe arrival of a bouncing new theatre company at Dundee Rep on Saturday night! Entertainment is the keyword for The Court of Miracles, which has launched itself on to a public who, judging by the audience reaction at the weekend, are all too ready for a bit of good old fashioned laughter.

It’s a simple format, a quartet of performers draw on comic material old and new, throw in some songs, a lot of business and hey presto, there’s something you can just sit back and enjoy.

Some of the sketches are from the comic collection of the late Walter Carr and some are written by the cast.

The company is the brainchild of actors Jimmy Chisholm and Ian Grieve who are joined by Paul Morrow and Clare Waugh.

Chisholm has a natural gift for this sort of thing, revelling in the old material, bringing in the new and keeping it all bowling along with the brio of a ringmaster.

He and Paul Morrow as a couple of peroxide lady traffic wardens demonstrate the fine art of telling an old joke well. You may know the punch line but these boys make it live again.

Ian Grieve croons and cowpokes and has that lovely slightly bemused look of the comedian, while Clare Waugh belts out a few songs.

The second half sees the arrival of Pete Cutter, the top private investigator of the Highlands and Islands. It is scripted by Paul Morrow who first saw the comic potential for presenting stage material in the manner of a radio broadcast when he acted in Whisky Galore. He and the rest of the gang do some lovely voices from cut-glass butler to toff by way of Peter Lorre in this spoof crime tale, but alas the audience only heard the first episode.

The old maxim is leave an audience wanting more and that’s what The Court of Miracles did, not just with the ripping yarn of Pete Cutter but in this jolly recapturing of good old entertainment. Dundee provided the test bed for this new company with its love of traditional entertainment and it looks like it was also the springboard.