The annual Short and Sweet Festival is in full swing again, showing off its short comings, hiding its talents under a bushel of bulrushes, coughing up maybe a duo of gems from the dross of a dozen every week.

Oh, if only every production could have a modicum of the talent contained in MATCHBOX THEATRE from the fabled stable of Faber and Faber.

OK, so these short entertainments are from the frantically funny Michael Frayn, the polished playwright of Noises Off and Copenhagen, and Short and Sweet is the democratic testing ground for fledglings and novices, but a modicum of the master is all that is asked.

This suite of shorts numbers thirty and each is a thrifty use of ear, eye, tongue, heart and mind.

Just about every theatrical genre is represented here – drama, comedy, farce, musical, – as well as a huge dollop of “theatrical” theatrical, self-referencing traditions, the function and form of the performing arts.

Midway through the collection there is an interval, for instance, which is a dialogue between two people who purport to be audience members. Interval is followed by Memorial, a eulogy on the passing of the Interval. And so it goes.

Two of the sketches, A Pleasure Shared about an excruciating exponent of expectoration, and Outside Story, a brilliant news broadcast where the topics are lifted from classic plays, have appeared in earlier collections, but have never been staged.

Another two, Finishing Touches a riff on the old Two Ronnies routine of one character finishing another’s sentence, and Pig in the Middle an absurdist gem, have been staged, in a touring production of Alarms and Excursions, but have never been published.

A perfect presentation for the proscenium of your imagination, a short and sweet suite of cerebral entertainment. Future and Potential Short & Sweet scenariasts would do well to use Matchbox Theatre as a primer for their endeavours.

Supertheatricalafragilisticexponentsodelicious!

MATCHBOX THEATRE by Michael Frayn is published in slip case hard back by Faber & Faber.