Witham Amateur Operatic Society came into being nearly 100 years ago. What the founding fathers would have made of this addition to their repertoire is anyone’s guess. For this is about as far removed from opera as it’s likely to get.

It’s basically a celebration of the sixties, a brash, raucous show fizzing with energy.

The songs are woven into a script that is borrowed, real or imagined, from Shakespeare with excruciating puns – to beep or not to beep, beware the ids that march – alongside more genuine dialogue, some from The Tempest, which loosely provides the show’s source material.

Thus we have Captain Tempest – the ebullient David Everest-Ring, who holds everything together – Dr Prospero – Stewart Adkins in effervescent form – Miranda, the Bosun and Ariel the robot.

Claire Rowe comes to the fore in the Belmonts’ Teenager In Love and Connie Francis’s Robot Man, Diana Easton belts out the Moody Blues’ Go Now while Tim Clarke, bravely taking to the stage in roller skates, laments his lot via the Brook Brothers’ Warpaint.

Above all there is the non-Shakespearean role of Cookie, a marvellously mature performance from 14-year-old Harry Tunningley, who attacks rock ‘n’ roll standards Shake Rattle and Roll and Great Balls of Fire to the manner born.

By Ron Fosker