There is more than the Atlantic separating British and American stage humor. For one thing our allies tend to be physical in their theater jokes, while we tend to be more verbal.

If you like, our humor is more Jewish. Some Brit master clowns - a Charlie Chaplin or Stan Laurel - can effortlessly bridge the gap. But it's not easy.

"The Play What I Wrote," a hit London comedy almost as much concocted as written, by Hamish McColl, Sean Foley and Eddie Braben, opened at the Lyceum on Saturday night, full of belly-laughs, guts (we would call it chutzpah) and wild, wild hope.

It is crazy, sweet, dangerously funny, and so English you could serve it up with crumpets and strawberry jam for afternoon tea.

It stars two superb, exquisite, deft and daft comedians, McColl and Foley themselves, together with a third little guy Toby Jones, who, in his quiet weird way, is just as funny as the other two, and - here's a gimmick - every night a "mystery celebrity guest star."

The show is a homage to two enormously popular but dead British vaudeville and TV comedians, Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise, both enormously unknown this side of the Atlantic.

As what I had seen in Britain of Morecambe and Wise had left me cordially indifferent, when I first saw "The Play What I Wrote" in London, I approached it with all the wariness of a stooge gazing at a custard pie.

I had quite forgotten about the sheer manic genius of Foley and McColl - in my book markedly superior comics to Morecambe and Wise themselves - last seen off-Broadway four years ago in the nuttily amazing "Do You Come Here Often?"

This new venture, staged by classicist Kenneth Branagh with perfect aplomb and clearly a lovely feel for the material, is a mini-masterpiece of comic invention, an apotheosis of that strange theatrical monster, the double act.

The premise of the premise (if you don't see what I mean, wait) is that Hamish wants to break up his act with Sean and become a serious playwright, and see his play "A Tight Squeeze for the Scarlet Pimple," in the West End and on Broadway.

But the real premise is to rework some of the old Morecambe and Wise routines (such as their in-England-famous getting up in the morning bit), to which end they have the collaboration of Braben, M & W's former scriptwriter, and then to give the whole show, including the spoof play, F & M's own antic slant.

The lead American producer, Mike Nichols, who himself knows a thing or two about comedy, has presumably helped tweak the show a bit for its trans-Atlantic transfer - although for the life of me I'm not quite sure where - and it now emerges as quite the silliest and funniest show on Broadway.

Foley is the outrageous one with the rubbery legs who does funny-walks so silly that they make Monty Python seem positively rheumatic, McColl is the straight guy with the pained, rubbery grimaces, and as a light-as-air pair they are priceless. And little protean Jones is damned good as well.

As for the "mystery guest" you have to pay your money and take your chance. In previews, audiences have been treated to Roger Moore, Liam Neeson, Zoe Caldwell and Nathan Lane.

On Saturday night we had a perfectly wonderful, properly pompous, handsomely aggrieved and stiffly deadpanned Kevin Kline, but I am sure that whoever risks taking on the role will be worth seeing.

Personally, I would be happy to see guest star after guest star, night after night, just as long as Foley, McColl and Jones (for here's a double act threatening to go triple) are there to make me giggle like a gurgling drain.