STAGE REVIEW: Salad Days - at the Festival Theatre, Malvern, from Tuesday, October 2 to Saturday, October 7, 2018.

WOULDN’T life be boring without a spot of stuff and nonsense once in a while, a little light relief to lift the mind and spirit?

Well here’s the chance to find it and take a trip back in time to the 1950s with this traditional offering which has oodles of nonsense thickly laid on with a trowel…

I can remember some way back to childhood days and a song about Sparky and the magic piano, but here it’s Minnie - very much a mini-piano, which takes over the mantle of magician - her tinkling ivories tempting, then forcing, anyone nearby to break into dance. - students, MPs, even the police!

Here we are allowed to indulge ourselves in much simpler times - no computers not even mobile phones to interrupt. But my, how the world has changed considerably since Julian Slade and Dorothy Reynolds wrote Salad Days.

This was back in 1954 when the pair were given just a month to write a summer musical on the orders of the Bristol Old Vic’s artistic director.

They had already had hits with Christmas in King Street and The Merry Gentlemen, and now tasked towards the end of an era they were, with respect, gently satirising - they really came up trumps.

Salad Days, a title apparently inspired by a girl behind the theatre bar who knew her Anthony and Cleopatra, they came up with this trivial but most unusual musical which delighted audiences in Bristol and left the cast simply stunned when in went to the Vaudeville in London and took 21 curtain calls on its first night.

In the years that have since gone by the show has been given a regular airing with a revival production - of which this is the fourth, but it has featured too in the repertoire of amateur companies across the country.

It’s a musical homage - a nostalgic journey back to simpler times and its quirkiness, if not a degree of wackiness, adds an extra dimension.

Under Bryan Hodgson’s direction all works well.

Lead characters Timothy and Jane, Mark Anderson and Jessica Croll, offer a romance that feels touchable and real, and is the support for the rest of this splendidly nonsensical story.

Comedy, song and dance is scattered all around with some quality moments of individuality such as those from Wendi Peters, who plays Lady Raeburn, Jane’s mother; Maeve Byrne, who lights up the stage as cabaret turn Asphynxia; and Francesca Pim too with her over-the-top debutante Fiona, who has eyes only for Nigel (James Gulliford).

Excelling elsewhere were Dan Smith, who played the mysterious tramp; Nathan Elwick’s Boot, the confused copper, and Callum Evans, who played the mute Troppo with terrific gymnastic movements.

Costumes are colourful and bright, and that’s exactly what Salad Days is. It might be an old fashioned musical but it possesses the power, just like Minnie, to make life feel really good.

So if you feel the necessity for a smile to be put back on your face then look no further.