It’s more than 40 years since the last episode of Round the Horne was aired on the BBC Light Programme.

The end came not because it had lost its audience, far from it, the show regularly pulled in 15 million listeners. It ended because its star, Kenneth Horne, suddenly died of a heart attack.

Written by Barry Took and Marty Feldman the half-hours of surreal comedy were a riotously funny whirl of parody, complex word play and blatant sexual innuendo.

The sketches were populated by a cast of bizarre characters and its stars were Horne, Kenneth Williams, Betty Marsden, Hugh Paddick, Bill Pertwee and Douglas Smith (who usually played the horse).

What Took and Feldman did was bend the stuffy, Rethian rule book of good taste and decency to produce something that would be hard to dribble past today’s BBC pc police. The show, entirely anarchic for the 60s, has stood the test of time.

On stage at Malvern Jonathan Rigby (Horne), Robin Sebastian (Williams) Sally Grace (Marsden), David Delve (Paddick), Michael Shaw (Pertwee) and Stephen Boswell (Smith) put two recordings to bed at the BBC’s Paris Studios in Regent Street, London. Even the Fraser Hayes Four - billed here as the “Not the…” - provide close harmonies with nifty actions.

The world of Round the Horne is spent with the likes of Dame Celia Molestrangler, ageing juvenile Binkie Huckaback, J Peasmold Gruntfuttock, Seamus Android, Daphne Whitethigh and Dobbiroids the magical horse rejuvenator.

The humour is all in brilliant strokes of characterisation and the imagination which only radio can provide. The production bursts with the spirit of the original; an infectious combination of bawdy jokes and inventive writing.

The man sat next to me was doubled up by the entendres; four 20-somethings behind were guffawing with delight.

The night, naturally, belongs to Sebastian’s portrayal of Williams, not only for the acid drop actor’s famous arch delivery, squirming stance and flared nostrils but his Rambling Syd Rumpo ditties and the Julian and Sandy sketches where the dialogue is littered with the vaguely coded gay lingo of the 1960s.

Round the Horne is at Malvern Theatres until Saturday, October 10. It’s bona fantabulosa, ducky.