A thoroughly sensational night not to be missed

10:48am Wednesday 2nd May 2007

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Thoroughly Modern Millie, BBLOC, Pavilion, Bournemouth

FORGET the word amateur'. This is a company that is professional to its fingertips, so please, if you have any free time this week, go along and see this sensational production.

I just couldn't fault it. Martyn Knight's direction and choreography ensure that the evening is super-charged, and the input from musical director Ian Peters produces a great sound from singers and orchestra.

The show is tremendous fun, and if the story line is little more than boy meets girl' with the white slave trade thrown in, it really doesn't matter - on the subject of which, Gilbert and Sullivan fans will recognise a familiar tune from Ruddigore, and music from Swan Lake and Naughty Marietta also makes an appearance.

Chorus and principals are first-class. Emma Cooper is an endearingly vulnerable Millie, and Dale Waterworth has real leading man star quality as playboy Jimmy Smith. Also making a great impression are Shelley Gould (Dorothy Brown), John Earwood (Trevor Graydon), Annemarie Ferguson (Muzzy Van Hossmere), Cherrill Ashford (Mrs Meers) and her accomplices Ching Ho and Bun Foo (John Gerken & Ian Metcalfe), and Nikki Taylor (Miss Flannery).