When the founding father of the New Vic, Peter Cheeseman, retired in 1998 his final choice of play was Shakespeare’s The Tempest - a play in which Prospero, the Lord of the Isle, relinquishes his magical powers. 'That’s what I am doing myself,” he told me.

It would be unfair to push the parallel too far, but his old buddy Alan Ayckbourn is now 85 and his 90th play concerns itself with the waning of man and magic. Just maybe he is edging towards a swan song.

The setting of the play is the baronial front hall of the Bothridge family home with its tired tapestry sofas and faded carpets. Here lives the aged Jack Bothridge, once lord and master of Bothridge’s department store, where his word was law. But he is faded too. The splendid veteran Ayckbourn actor Bill Champion plays him with a delusional memory, dwindling forcefulness, creaking knees, bushy white beard and an unfortunate aggressive streak.

He is cared for by his former employee Ben, exquisitely portrayed by Paul Kemp, who treads a fine line between residual affection and lowly servitude. He recalls with deep love (before Bothridge’s) his joyously punishing period in Weekly Rep, trotting out the tightly timetabled, helter-skelter programme of learning lines and playing parts that Ayckbourn himself revelled in.

Into their closed world steps a failing theatre company - in reality it is three actors so desperate to stay in the business, amidst dwindling grants, they will play a (rightly) forgotten French farce in your own living room.

Jack hires them to perform for his wife Alice’s forthcoming birthday, even though she is no position to attend. Her departure, we learn, was one of buttoned-up emotion, beautifully described in just four words “one suitcase, no note”.

So now Ayckbourn can explore the decline of the human mind and the death of theatre as he knew it 60 years ago side by side. And here the play does get autobiographical, with Sir Alan drawing upon memories of his own Acting Stage Manager roots in Scarborough and his fears for the future of the art form he has loved all his life.

The actors, played by Richard Stacey, Frances Marshall and Olivia Woodhouse, bemoan on Aykbourn’s behalf about a changed world. “Everything was positive in the old days”. “There’s very little that is life- affirming in the modern world”.

They also (daringly) describe today’s audiences as ‘Riff Raff’, packing themselves in to “mindless musicals”.  And there’s an undisguised dig at tele soap stars dallying with doing a little stage work for their soul, but not actually turning up.  Its all too true and Sir Alan has as much right to be grumpy as his creation Jack Bothridge.

After three acts of witty twists and turns the finale of Show And Tell is the much heralded French Farce -performed to an audience of one.

It’s funny in its own right but strangely it is so tangential it doesn’t illuminate any of the above. As in life, there is no climax or conclusion to Show And Tell. But it is vintage Ayckbourn and you have to marvel at any man who can get three laughs out of one croissant.

Three stars

Reviewed by Chris Eldon Lee at the New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme where Show And Tell continues until Saturday 26 October.