Oxford Operatic has not staged The Boyfriend for 27 years - prompting the question: why not? The opportunity to mount such 1920s showmanship must be a director's dream, and Sandy Wilson's classic musical should be an easy hit in anyone's hands. Director Barbara Denton succeeds splendidly. The inventiveness and exuberance of this production is a delight, and there are delightful back-stage stories to tell.

Barbara played Hortense, the maid, in that 1980 production; now she directs her own daughter Clare in the same role, and her son Mark plays Pierre. There's also a mother/daughter acting combination: Diana Pemberton-Pigott plays the frightening Lady Brockhurst while her daughter, Sally Chase, is one of the stars of the show as the wonderful Maisie.

Wilson never set out to make audiences think in 1953: he just wanted them to enjoy themselves by transporting them back to a more joyous time. The plot is paper-thin: will the girls at Mme. Dubonnet's finishing school in Nice get their boys, and, vitally, will Polly Browne (played sweetly by Jennifer Heim) actually find a boy in the first place and then hang on to him? Answers on a postcard.

The parts for women are far better than those for males and the ladies of the OOC (all wonderfully costumed) sing, dance and smile beautifully. Maisie has a scene-grabbing song with Safety In Numbers, exhibiting some classy athleticism along the way; Hortense is always a magnet for the eye and has a show-stopper with It's Nicer In Nice; and Poor Little Pierrette is tenderly sung by Marilyn Moore as Mme. Dubonnet, duetting with the pure-voiced Polly.

The enduring song is I Could Be Happy With You, and its first outing (for it is much reprised) is charmingly put over by Polly and her new boy friend Tony - played enthusiastically by Andrew Stott in one of the only two reasonable male roles. The other is that from Ronald Hewitt as the hilarious aged roué Lord Brockhurst. Mr. Hewitt has been a member of the company for more than 50 years and richly deserved the cheers from a packed first-night audience after his tour-de-force It's Never Too Late To Fall In Love.

On occasion, there seemed to be an unnecessary number of people cluttering the stage and there are examples of over-contrived choreography (some faces visibly set as their owners try to get the dancing right rather than concentrating on acting), but the plusses outweigh the negatives throughout. The 18-piece orchestra was unobtrusively accurate.

Oh, and in case you're wondering: yes, all the girls do get their boys!