Let’s not beat around the bush. Love or loath them, one-man shows are a tricky sell – even with the colourful and seemingly endless well of anecdotes and tribulations that was John Betjeman’s life.

Sand in the Sandwiches picks up the gauntlet head on, stretching the one-man concept to its very limits.

Putting the onus on (the masterly) Edward Fox to capture the poet laureate in all his riotous and eccentric glory – with only his wits, a worn teddy bear, bench and chair as buttresses.

The production flits evocatively between streams of consciousness, as our very own Betjeman takes a wistful and action-packed trawl down memory lane, mixed in with his poetry recitation.

Here we learn of his brief and hopeless days at Oxford, his foray in to education as a prep school master, his spell in the Ministry of Information during World War Two, a tumultuous marriage and extracurricular dalliance with Elisabeth Cavendish.

Each irreverent new tale opens a fascinating window into his world and the inner circle of the great thinkers and political minds of the 20th century.

While Fox’s magnetic charisma and dynamic delivery hits the mark (his deep rich lilt commanding attention), painting a funny and endearing portrait of the verse-maker, Sand in the Sandwiches occasionally hurtles through anecdotes as if on a mad biographical box-ticking mission.

The static staging is also a sticking point. While the minimalism of the set creates a blank canvas for the imagination to wander and removes any distraction, watching a man holding court from a wrought-iron chair and only occasionally stretching or folding his newspaper makes for monotonous and slightly draining theatre.

A charming homage, but one which which gets too bogged down in detail at the expense of the fun and intrinsic vim of Betjeman's life and rhyme.

Sand in the Sandwiches runs at the Theatre Royal Bath until Saturday.