Comedy number

Geraldine Broderick as Mrs Wiberforce and Simon Butler as Professor Marcus. Photo/Andrew Warner

The man responsible for unleashing Sudoku puzzles upon the world has his own little puzzle to deal with right now - the art of comedy.

Wayne Gould is director of 16th Ave Theatre's latest comedy production, The Ladykillers.

Wayne says Irish playwright Graham Linehan has taken the popular 1950s movie and added plenty of new elements to modernise the comedy.

"The result is there's all kinds of humour in it - kids' humour, gentle comedy from the 1950s, modern satire, slapstick and we also have situational comedy," he says.

"It makes it very interesting for me as a director because it's hard to settle into one sort of feeling, you have to be very light, you have to switch from one kind of comedy to the next and getting the comic timing right is very important."

Another on-stage challenge for Wayne has been dealing with a number of locations all embodied in the one set.

Wayne turned his hand to the arts after a career as a lawyer, a judge in Hong Kong and a computer programme inventor. He is the brains behind the popular Sudoku numbers puzzle - he wrote the first computer programme that makes up the puzzles which were published internationally about 13 years ago.

Wayne, from Pyes Pa, has been a member of 16th Ave Theatre for just two years.

The Ladykillers will be his first time directing in 35 years (he was involved in amateur theatre as a young man).

A small 16th Ave cast plays out The Ladykillers. It tells the story of a sweet old lady in 1950s London who rents out her spare room to Professor Marcus, who she see thinks is a musician. However, he's actually a criminal and along with his friends, they're planning a major robbery.

Chaos ensues.

The Ladykillers, 16 Ave Theatre. Photo/Andrew Warner

the fine print
*What: The Ladykillers, directed by Wayne Gould
*Where: 16th Ave Theatre
*When: August 30-September 16
*Tickets: iTicket.co.nz or call into iSite.