Richard Lutz stirs childhood memories.

Hey kids…

What do Cat Deeley, Ant and Dec, Lenny Henry and Sandy Toksvig all have in common?

That’s right boys and girls: they all appeared on Saturday morning children’s shows. Both good and bad.

The Birmingham Rep re-creates those cur-raz-ee days of bad jokes, cream pies,  under-rehearsed chaos and anarchic fun and live music with studio play Never Try This At Home.

It encapsulates a fictional kids’ show from the late ’70’s inside a  thoroughly terrible ‘lookback’ show that tries to find out what happened to a mediocre cast that actually had their show, Shushi, shut down for its offensive content (which included a suicide attempt.)

Like Saturday morning shows everywhere, this play sometimes works, sometimes doesn’t. It is physical comedy, perfected at times by  production company Tales Told By An Idiot, and it does plumb some of the dark depths of three decades ago when sexism, racism, political incorrectness, cruelty and dubious attitudes towards children did rule the airwaves.

But sometimes it misses, longeurs emerge and there is a bit of clock watching: it could have been pruned by ten minutes with no bad effect.

Still, funny in parts with stand out comedienne Petra Massey cast beautifully as the put-upon ‘girl presenter’ trying to shove a humiliating nightmare job into her past.  And, as a bright note, each night a different local band performs live – including a great Phil Collins impersonator complete with bacon bap.

Until 15th March.

Tix 0121 236 4455