Entertaining Angels, Monday, October 23 until Saturday, November 4, Theatre Royal Bath.

PENELOPE Keith's appearance at the Theatre Royal follows hot on the heels of her former comedy co-star Felicity Kendal.

Kendal's performance in David Hare's Amy's View was poignant stuff, a high standard for anyone to maintain.

But Keith can always be relied on to provide an ingenious balance between comedy and poignancy, and with Richard Everett's script she has the perfect vehicle with which to achieve her usual standards.

Keith plays Grace, a vicars wife who is mourning the loss of her husband, while trying to cope with her estranged sister's gardening addiction and the invasion of the next vicar, who is measuring up the red-bricked parish home for size.

Memories of pouring hundreds of gallons of tea and baking countless cakes play heavy on Grace's mind, but the trivialities of vicarage life are soon forgotten when her sister reveals a devastating secret - one of several plots and twists cleverly weaved into the script.

Entertaining Angels ambles between comedy and tragedy, with Grace's acerbic wit and one-liners a joy to behold. But when the laughter subsides, Grace's fragility surfaces, as the past comes back to haunt her and she is led to question her faith in marriage.