The Front Page, Chichester Festival Theatre until July 13.

NO one told me journalism was this much fun! Picture the scene. Chicago in the late 20s and the prison press room.

A group of fast-talking, poker-playing, hard-drinking journalists are chasing a scoop. Hildy Johnson (Adrian Lukis), a tad naive but equally ambitious, reckons it's time to give this journalism lark the big heave-ho, and settle for married life in New York away from his unscrupulous editor, Walter Burns (Michael Pennington).But Hildy doesn't reckon on a late-breaking story about the execution of an anarchist, found guilty of shooting a policeman, who dramatically escapes on the eve of his due death.The result is a fantastically-absorbing fast-paced comedy. The American accents stayed true all evening.