Salad Days

These days, Julian Slade and Dorothy Reynolds's 1954 musical is probably best known for inspiring a youthful Cameron Mackintosh to become a producer. 'Salad Days' represents a world that was wiped off the stage by a combination of John Osborne's 'Look Back in Anger' and the American musical 'West Side Story'. Now the opera company Tête à Tête is staging an enchanting revival in the unlikely setting of the Riverside Studios. Designer Tim Meacock lets the sunshine into the normally gloomy Studio 2 by covering the walls with gold-coloured curtains and laying the floor with artificial grass. A light touch is needed for such featherweight entertainment and crucially director Bill Bankes-Jones never patronises the material nor sends it up.

The plot unusually brings the hero and heroine together right at the start. Just down from Oxford, Timothy and Jane get married and he takes the first job he is offered, which turns out to be looking after a magic piano for £7 a week. When played, the piano forces everyone in the park to dance, even disapproving dowagers and cabinet ministers. The spirit of Mary Poppins hovers over the stage as choreographer Quinny Sacks makes arms and legs move without their owners' consent. Michelle Francis as a resourceful Jane and Sam Harrison as lanky Timothy slip so naturally into the 1950s that it's hard to believe they normally live in the twenty-first century. They are backed by a terrific cast, which effortlessly sings the delightful songs without amplification to the accompaniment of pianos, double bass and percussion. A topping treat for a cold November night.