Lecturer and Nick Nolte anorak Allen has spent four sleepless nights working to meet his essay deadline. Only short-burst DVD re-runs of his macho hero allow him to resist his sexy fiancée’s calls to bed. Bessie, who has neglected her own job to help Allen, is hoping the paper on Descartes will persuade sceptical Professor Exton to keep Allen in the department.

Bessie’s gift of tickets for a Sting concert puts Allen in a desperate dilemma. He hates the performer and won’t be able to disguise his feelings. As Descartes states: What’s conceivable, (i.e. that Allen could like Sting) is achievable. The answer’s obvious to our sleep-deprived hero: the aging rock star must be persuaded to remake all 60 of Nolte’s films. Of course, Bessie mustn’t get to know he’s ditched the paper they’ve worked on for three months.

The current production at Old Red Lion Theatre must be one of the funniest plays on the London Fringe, following a sell-out run at this year’s Edinburgh Festival. The plot outline allows only a glimpse of an entertainment that comprises just over an hour of brilliant writing, staging and action leading up a farcically surreal climax. As writer, director and lead actor Tom Lister is amazing.

The fusion of live action and inventive video presentation is brilliantly executed, memorable sequences including a hilarious mock-up of an action shot where Sting’s head is superimposed on Nolte’s body.

The casting of the audience as fairly clueless undergraduate students at a lecture is inspired; Allen hands notes for distribution to a man in the front row - 'Not now, Christopher – at the end of the lecture’ – and comments in exasperated aside when we fail to come up with the right answers. ‘It’s perfectly obvious no-one’s read my book’

Helsinki-born Kati Markkanen is excellent as Bessie, the supportive end-of-tether fiancée of a man she calls, with good reason, ‘a selfish, self-obsessed twat’.

If it’s no use relying on philosophy if you’re a crap as a partner, but it’s very funny seeing someone try. Oh, and don’t forget to collect your hand-out from Christopher at the end – like the rest of this delightful play, it’ll surprise you and make you laugh.