TWO masters of the unconscious mind meet in Abergavenny tomorrow night - but the result is far from harmonious.

The award-winning farce Hysteria, by writer-director Terry Johnson, won over fans in the West End with a compulsive mix of high wit and low comedy.

It's 1938, and Sigmund Freud is in his Hampstead study. But an ordinary evening becomes a bizarre farce when a neurotic nude hides herself in his closet just as Spanish surrealist Salvador Dali arrives to visit his hero. Can the father of psychiatry hold himself together while making sure his guests stay well apart?

The play, which won the Olivier Award for best comedy, visits in a touring production by Not The National Theatre, founded by former members of the National.

Like the work of Tom Stoppard, Hysteria mixes slapstick and intellectual humour to sparkling effect.

Jeffrey Perry stars as Freud, and said: "I did quite a bit of research for the part, and visited the Freud museum which is in his Hampstead house where the play is set. I've also worked for his granddaughter-in-law before and when she came to see the play she enjoyed it a lot.

"It's based on real events but it's been woven together as an intellectual discussion and a very physical farce."

Johnson's best-known play is Cleo, Camping, Emmanuelle And Dick, set behind the scenes of four well-loved Carry On films and showing the seamier side of Barbara Windsor and Sid James, not to mention the famously neurotic Kenneth Williams.

And his adaption of the classic movie The Graduate, which starred Kathleen Turner and Jerry Hall (among others) in London, has just opened to acclaim in Broadway and Australia.

Hysteria visits Abergavenny's Borough Theatre tomorrow evening. Tickets are £7.50 or £5 concessions and the show starts at 7.30pm. Box office 01873 850805.