APPLAUSE is one thing, but when the general cacophony is increased by what appears to be the machine gun rattle of corset buttons hitting the Swan Theatre ceiling, then you know that this show’s working.

Not to mention the added crackle of splintering ribs, the icing on the cake of what must have been a veritable orgy of adulation.

All right, let’s not over-egg the pudding. But you’ve got to admit it - once Worcester’s two madcap ministers of mirth get going, there’s no denying the audience is with them all the way.

Ben Humphrey and Simon Renshaw are a couple of King’s School boys who will undoubtedly soon be household names. Their prodigious output is the product of their own fevered – not to say disturbed - imaginations, ably assisted by Alex Harvey, Rosie Walters, Abi Williams and Worcester Live director Chris Jaeger.

Yes, it’s tempting to compare them to the stars of the 1980s golden age of comedy, people such as Fry, Laurie, Atkinson and Stephenson. But that would be to miss the point.

For the former choristers with the angelic butter-wouldn’t-melt look actually have a sense of observational humour so sharp that it’s a wonder they haven’t minced themselves into bite-size chunks.

Yes, some of it’s derivative. But as this DVD recorded live at the Swan proves, the material itself bristles with a very British originality with just the right amount of bad taste.

Take their ‘women talking blithering crap’ sketch for example. We know immediately what that’s about, so it soon becomes funny. Likewise the ‘thinking problem’ and ‘sexsavers’ routines.

To be sure, there is more than a nod in the direction of the Pythons here. Nevertheless, the ‘have you taken water before sir?’ piece pushes the joke forward at a fast rate of knots, which leads us neatly to ‘Titanic’, in which our heroes postulate that perhaps a plumber is required.

Yes, all good stuff. However, it is only when the ‘Billingham’ sequence – hilariously played by George Watson - really gets going that we should remember that Humphrey and Renshaw perhaps have just a few scores to settle, in the nicest possible way, with a schoolmaster or two.

True, the lads are far too young to have savoured the crack of bamboo on worsted, yet the master whose sarcasm is more lethal than a flying blackboard rubber will be familiar to all those who once had to decline or sex the genders of Latin vocab.

This DVD will provide a fitting showcase for the impossibly young Humphrey and Renshaw and their loony chums. Buy it or wear the same corsets for the rest of your life.

Contains Small Parts: Humphrey and Renshaw DVD isavailable from www.humphreyandrenshaw.com, priced £10.99.