SIGMUND Freud has incurable jaw cancer and awaits death in the study of his West Hampstead home.

Enter an unhinged young woman who begs for help from the father of psychoanalysis.

He tells her to leave. When, instead, she rips off her clothes and locks herself in a closet the scene is set for a perfect marriage of English farce and central European wit and profundity.

Freud, masterfully played by Ian Bartholomew, struggles in vain to conceal her from friend and GP Dr Abraham Yahuda (Clive Swift, otherwise known as Richard Bucket from Keeping up Appearances) and when Salvador Dali (Guy Henry) arrives to pay homage to his "maestro" the situation is already surreal.

Hysteria is meticulously researched and superbly realised. It deals with serious controversy over psychoanalysis and incest through hysterically funny entertainment.