Inside No.9: Stage/Fright (Wyndham's Theatre, London). Verdict: A party for themselves. Rating:. Fifty-something TV comedians Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton are celebrating their pearl anniversary – having worked together for an astonishing 30 years. Now they're back on stage where they started out in The League Of Gentlemen (with Mark Gatiss), celebrating their success by throwing a 'me party' for themselves – not unlike Amy Adams and Miss Piggy in The Muppets.

Instead of dining out, they're redeploying the format of their BBC so-called 'anthology' series, Inside No.9, to stage a collection of interlocking yarns, mixing horror, comedy and ghost stories. Set in and around the Wyndham's Theatre itself, they start with a brilliant sketch featuring audience members running a gamut of cardinal sins from eating, chatting and answering phones, to Skyping on laptops. I've seen it all.

Thereafter, it morphs into the tale of smutty, washed-out Seventies comedians Len and Tommy (aka Cheese and Crackers) staging a dismal comeback. But the scene changes again as they kidnap a minor celebrity (Alexander Armstrong from Pointless on Wednesday this week), before it settles down after the interval as a. Hammer Horror spoof in which a young woman seeks minor surgery at a lunatic asylum. The show has a distinct feeling of using up the comedians' off-cuts, out-takes and left-overs for the amusement of themselves and their fervid fan-base.

Fifty-something TV comedians Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton are celebrating their pearl anniversary – having worked together for an astonishing 30 years. The duo are redeploying the format of their BBC so-called 'anthology' series, Inside No.9, to stage a collection of interlocking yarns, mixing horror, comedy and ghost stories. And in keeping with their guiding principle for No.9, we must not only expect the unexpected, but also expect the very much expected… innuendo and black comedy.

And naturally there are a great many disguises as both men slip in and out of costumes and prosthetics – including for one deliciously gruesome interlude in which Shearsmith amputates his own leg. Both men have always struck me as being blessed with the aura of slightly sleazy uncles. This seasons their stage presence and our discomfiture significantly. But here, they also clearly aspire to classic double-act status, and there is more than a nod to Morecambe (Pemberton) and Wise (Shearsmith).

And yet, their habit of not only pulling our legs, but also constantly pulling the rug from under our expectations does become slightly wearing. Nonetheless, there is something commendably disruptive about their brand of theatrical anarchy and director Simon Evans does well to keep their runaway train on track – especially when it comes to the multiple levels of reality in the asylum scenes. Nor is it all Pemberton and Shearsmith self-tribute. There are also terrific turns from Anna Francolini as a deadpan nurse at the asylum, and Miranda Hennessy as a pop star turned actress (a dig at Lily Allen).

Fans will be pleased with the roster of self-regarding in-jokes in what is a one-off memorial service before its time. In keeping with their guiding principle for No.9, we must not only expect the unexpected, but also expect the very much expected… innuendo and black comedy. And, although the rest of us may also be amused, we needn't be too disappointed the show is more or less sold out. Until April 5.

Scissorhandz (Southwark Playhouse, London). Verdict: Lacks cutting edge. Scissorhandz is an American musical homage to Tim Burton he may well prefer to forget. It's based on his 1990 film Edward Scissorhands starring Johnny Depp. Now, in a dazzlingly innocuous move, they have inserted a 'z' into the title and turned Burton's tale of the misshapen outcast with scissors for fingers into an ecstatically banal affirmation of variant sexual identity.

In line with Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, our gender-neutral hero demands to know his purpose from his creator-mother. 'You are not from God, but from love,' she explains, without resolving her creation's bemusement at humans' tribal behaviour. But although the show is earnest, it's mostly a loud celebration of sectarian interest. Music consists of recycled pop and rock, ranging from Chaka Khan's I'm Every Woman to American Authors' Best Day Of My Life, and climaxing in an almost haunting rendition of Radiohead's Creep.

The singing, however, is uneven, with Emma Williams yodelling most forcefully as Scissorhandz's adoptive, Avon Lady mother, Peg. Otherwise, a kitsch, happy-clappy mood glosses variable vocal standards. Scissorhandz is an American musical homage to Tim Burton he may well prefer to forget. Meanwhile, the venue's narrow strip of a stage, hemmed in at close quarters, cramps Bradley Bredeweg's rock-musical ambitions.