Forsooth! How time flies when you enjoy yourself in the theatre.

This 60-minute production "Shakespeare, his Wife and the Dog" from the Bated Breath company is a superb piece of drama performed in the intimate setting of the Playhouse Studio.

A touring two-hander in two very fine hands slickly directed by Julia St John.

Former Everyman and RSC actor and well-known stage and screen star Phillip Whitchurch is joined by accomplished actress Sally Edwards - a partner in rhyme who plays his astute wife, Anne Hathaway.

This hugely enjoyable, compact, beautifully-crafted, scripted and acted play (quoting excerpts from many plays within the play) will leave you smiling as you leave the theatre.

Without winking, Whitchurch and Edwards deliver lines that we all know so well interweaved in the conversational style context of this story.

It features many flashbacks of the Bard's career now approaching retirement a case of 'Will he - or won't he'?

Has the ink pot run dry? Time quill tell...(that's enough Shakespeare gags).

It is set in April 1616 on the eve of his birthday.

Why can't the pair sleep and who is Will waiting for and where is the enigmatic dog?

Will it be a case of all's well that ends well?

Dressed in night gown throughout Anne is a match for the famous wordsmith.

He, too, in night attire paces his Stratford-upon-Avon house bought with the spoils of his success.

She muses on her husband's many failings but also praises his Bottom (the character that is) as well as their passionate courtship and love.

There's even hints that as well as inspiring good Will - now a rich and famous playwright constantly looking over his shoulders - that she may have written a few classic lines herself.

The stage is strewn with manuscripts - the writers's greatest hits.

A chest full of props and memories and sentimental keepsakes sparks their fractious but affectionate conversation from the Globe Theatre to their family tragedies.

Both actors clearly relish every word and observation.

It is packed with humour and of course tragic moments.

When you wish a production would not end after an hour you know you have a hit on your hands.

It will make you laugh out loud and sigh at the sad bits while you celebrate Will's work 400 years on...yes, as I said, time flies when you are having fun.

Prithee, dear reader, there's even an Elizabethan dance thrown in.

Globe rating: Five Stars - A Bard Day's Delight.

Until Saturday.

Box office: 0151 709 4776. 

The Playhouse Studio season continues with "Just an Ordinary Lawyer" from Ocotber 4 to October 8.