Keighley's answer to comic duo Morecambe and Wise -- Marsden and Rundle -- are about to embark on the creation of their 50th pantomime.

The two 79 year-olds, a creative twosome since lads in their teens, have already decided on the version -- Babes in the Wood.

It is apt because it was one of the first pantomimes Keith Marsden and Geoffrey Rundle produced back in the early 1950s when they were members of their church drama group in Keighley.

As a celebration, they are even contemplating using the same bill board design.

There is even a chance that their work will be made available to other amateur outfits through the National Operatic and Dramatic Association.

The organisation is in talks with the two men over the idea. If it goes ahead, the productions could be real money-spinners, as they have for Keighley Amateurs, the outfit the two men have been linked with throughout most of their theatre-life.

The duo's latest offering, Cinderella, performed by Keighley Amateurs at Victoria Hall, Keighley, over the just-gone festive season, was their most successful ever.

"Takings were almost 50 per cent up. 3,884 people came to see the show over its nine days run," said Mr Rundle, a retired teacher who lives in Greenhead Lane, Keighley.

"We have been doing pantomime so long that we have grandparents in the audience who were kids when they first saw our show," said Mr Marsden, of Laycock village.

Today, the two men concentrate on writing the scripts, but until 1988 they performed on stage as Comic and Dame.

It was a partnership which had evolved from their early days as young men performing a comedy double act around the region.

"We both wrote the gags and I was the comic and Geoffrey played the straight man. So it was a natural progression when we did pantomime for Geoffrey to play the dame and me the comic," said Mr Marsden.

Their pantomime careers started with their local Church at Ingrow St John in Keighley during the Second World War, when they wrote the script, performed on stage and Mr Marsden managed the production.

They began working jointly with Keighley Amateurs in the 1950s on the annual musical, as well as continuing their comedy act, and in 1965 wrote their first pantomime for the group -- Jack and the Beanstalk.

Since then they have written every other, apart from one in the early 70s when there was no venue in Keighley.

It means they have covered the whole of the pantomime repertoire, re-writing scripts to bring them up to date several times over.

Soon the two men will be digging out their old script for Babes in the Wood -- their 50th -- and working on the new version for this year's show. "The basic plot never changes and the characters remain the same -- we produce traditional pantomime with a format people recognise, but the comedy changes and, of course, so do the routines," said Mr Marsden.