Keith Waterhouse’s affectionately sardonic portrait of his fellow scribe and toper Jeffrey Bernard appeals to the Bohemian streak in us all and to an older generation of journalists in particular.

Robert Powell is the third incumbent of the role I have seen – Peter O’Toole and Tom Conti were the others – and delivers as fine a performance as any of them.

It has to be said O’Toole’s gaunt aspect was probably the closest to Bernard’s own dissolute appearance.

But despite looking a tad too healthy, Powell was charismatic, crisp and possessed of wonderful comic timing. He embraced the hedonistic persona of a man apparently hell-bent on self destruction, through the bars and betting shops of Soho, without a jot of remorse.

The play is stuffed with glorious one-liners which this brisk production delivers to maximum effect.

It’s almost a monologue. Bernard has fallen asleep in his favourite pub, Soho’s Coach and Horses, and wakes to find himself locked in.

He embarks on an eclectic stream of recollections of his colourful life. Actors Mark Hadfield, Peter Bramhill, Amy Hall and Rebecca Lacey pop in and out to speak the words of his friends, lovers, wives (four of them) and employers (many of them).

The title comes from the epithet that appeared in place of his column in the Spectator on the occasions he was too drunk to write it or in hospital when his inner organs rebelled against the perpetual overdose of alcohol.

Through Bernard, Waterhouse also laments the loss of the ‘characters’ of Fleet Street and Soho, those wonderfully irresponsible larger-than-life people who are probably hell to live with – as Bernard must have been – but add a vital spark to other people’s lives.

This production is a salute to one of the greatest.