A packed Pavilion, music by one of the nation's favourite ever bands, a thrilled audience aged eight to 80, a rapturous standing ovation - that much was comprehensible.

The shock was in realising that performing Queen and Ben Elton's hit West End musical was a cast aged 15 or less, giving us a performance of such stunning maturity and sheer quality that not one person came out of the theatre without a smile of optimism for the future of performing arts in our town.

We know these Queen songs and the show quickly gets into its stride with a full chorus version of Radio Ga Ga.

The principal characters are introduced via other songs: I Want to Break Free superbly sung by Lewis Asquith, brilliant in the key role of Galileo - and he is joined by diminutive style rebel Scaramouche, who then solos in Somebody to Love.

Where 13-year-old Jess Thurtell gets the vocal power from defies analysis she had a sparkling night both singing and acting, revealing a great feel for comedy as well as the music.

The villains of the piece, Killer Queen (Dilly Stephens) and Khashoggi (Niall Petchey) were superb and believably villainous.

More songs and fine performances came from Jack Goodwin as Britney and Lucy Heath as Meat, not forgetting Phil Stephens as Sir Big Mac and Andy Glover as a convincing Welsh hippie.

The show is about a future where live, original, soulful music is outlawed in favour of Computer Recorded Anodyne Pop. Nothing anodyne here, though.

An enormous chorus and very lively dance troupe supported the main cast and the band, mostly current or recent students, did full justice to Queen's music (must mention Toby James for the big guitar solo).

All the big Queen songs are here but I won't spoil the ending by saying which come last.

Missed an episode of Britain's Got Talent for this well Simon Cowell, we found it tonight.

All Saints School students have given us a show that celebrates a chunk of the best popular music of the last 30 years and it is a joy to be in the theatre with them. Directors Ross Mitchell and Ed Hintze and their team have done a grand job.

MJA