Happy As A Sandbag, Regent Centre, Christchurch

EXACTLY 69 years to the day after the Second World War began, and precisely at 19.39 hours, this bitter-sweet whistle-stop musical tour through the 1939-45 period began, having first disgorged its participants from military vehicles in the High Street.

Was that Winston Churchill I spotted? Hitler? Max Miller? The Andrews Sisters? Neville Chamberlain? Yes, they were all there to bring the highs and lows of the war to life.

And who better to do that than the multi-talented Charity Players, who act, sing and dance as if born to it and, with the addition of their equally multi-talented director Neil Mathieson, choreographer Georgina Smith, musical director James Stead and the fantastic Swing Unlimited Big Band to provide the accompaniment for those wonderful wartime songs, made for a glorious evening that had the audience cheering to the rafters.

No wonder. Super costumes, marvellously evocative back-screen graphics and a ration book programme were the pastry on the Woolton Pie and couldn't have been better.

There were so many highlights too, among which Max Miller, an hilarious cookery session, an airman parachuting to earth, the poignant You'll Never Know and a highly energetic dance finale have resolutely refused to leave my mind.