A FEW years ago, cabaret was pretty much a dying art but recently it’s been making a comeback as audiences discover once again the joys of live entertainment. And it must be getting popular, as the Christmas TV schedules included several documentaries exploring the work of a range of 20th century cabaret artistes.

The Two Moronnies, a double act featuring Morss and Wilcock that makes a nod in terms of narrative style to The Two Ronnies, is just but one example of people digging into the treasure trove of musical numbers and character sketches that have lain gathering dust in the attic for the past few decades.

Their latest effort, a fund-raiser for a variety of causes near and far, took place last weekend in a Carlops Village Hall that was packed to the gunnels.

They dusted down a selection of the well-loved but possibly forgotten and introduced modern - and, at times, quite biting and satirical - lyrics to tunes that most people from the age of eight to 80 could hum along to.

Backed by the redoubtable Jean Arulanantham on piano and a jazz band lead by the Campbell clan with Colin Hall (sax) and Alan Ferguson (accordion, banjo, guitar), they galloped through songs made famous by Noel Coward, Flanders and Swann, Cole Porter, Peter Sellers, Gilbert and Sullivan, Kurt Weill, Victoria Wood, Tom Lehrer, Ebb and Kander and several others. A guest appearance by captivating tenor Tom Morss and the mellifluous, melancholic soprano tones of Annie Patch provided a nice counter-balance to the energetic, almost frenetic style of the two main characters on show. Carlops’ answer to The Three Tenors gave us a completely new take on Memory and looked appropriately 'hippyish’ in a nice rendition of Busy Doing Nothing.

The duet of Morss and Wilcock also made an interesting nod in the direction of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore that gave the audience a nice break from the music together with some hilarious cross-dressing and musical shenanigans in an entertaining Gilbert and Sullivan set which had a go at the customer service ethics of a well know budget airline, jobsworths, the still to be seen Edinburgh trams and the propensity of the middle classes to engage in nattering at the slightest hint of scandal.

This show had real pace and energy. Sure, there was the odd rough edge to it - occasional artist corpsing and the odd missed entry and so forth – but these were few and far between given there were about twenty five numbers in two sets that ran an hour each.

Costumes were inventive, changes slick and there was a merciful absence of patter to link the various songs – the music was left to speak for itself which it invariably did. It was an evening that was both entertaining and amusing - and cheap. These guys do it for love and to help raise money for good causes.

The two rather hoarse performers told me afterwards they are planning to tour this later in 2014 and will happily bring their show to any village or society looking to raise money for a charitable cause.

Judging from the sustained audience applause at the conclusion of their latest little effort, they could well be flooded with offers.