The Broadway Masters -- A Revue of Modern Broadway -- BMDS at Daylesford -- through June 20 (Sold out).

The BMDS has reminded us that the "M'' in its title stands for "Musical'' with its revue of modern Broadway hits, now running at Daylesford. Apart from the annual pantomime, emphasis these days tends to focus on the Thespian aspect of theatre.

Now this has been rectified with an ambitious leap into the heart of Broadway, featuring highlights from some of the best musicals of the past 25 years. For Broadway enthusiasts, this was bonus indeed, as song after favourite song took its turn in the spotlight.

Sensibly, director Steve Gallant and musical director Gaynor Beaumont restricted the first half to the work of Englishman Andrew Lloyd Webber and the second to the French team of Claude-Michel Schonberg and Alain Boublil.

Which might leave us wondering why this wasn't a toast to London rather than Broadway, since every single one of the shows featured was conceived and staged there before transferring to New York.

After a lacklustre start to the proceedings, hardly helped by an unusually subdued Robert Duffy setting the scenes with all the animation of a funeral director, the salute to Webber came tentatively to life.

Gaynor Beaumont has brought the BMDS choir, which boasts children as well as adults, to an impressive standard and the strength of their singing in the excerpts from "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat'' and "Cats'' suggested that the entire impact of this section of the programme would have been strengthened had she relied more on them and less on soloists.

Some of the soloists, inevitably pale shadows of the stars who have gone before them, were bedevilled by the fact that they simply do not have the technical power to sustain these highly climactic songs, and reduced what should have been a sense of charged theatricality to the level of a school recital performed in costume.

A case in point was Linde Ayling singing "Don't Cry For Me, Argentina''; she sings sweetly enough and even looked the part, in fur stole and dangling earrings, but it was hard to believe that this was a woman who held millions in her sway through sheer charisma.

Newcomer Mark Hamilton upped the temperature somewhat with a commanding portrayal of "Jesus Christ Superstar'', but it was Cyanne Thomas, floating onstage as Christine in "Phantom of the Opera'' who reinforced the not unnatural assumption that musicals require strong singers. Here, at last, we saw what this entire Webber medley could and should have portrayed. She has a well-trained voice that is as comfortable in the lower as upper register, she knows how to act and she looks beautiful.

The second half of the show was far more effective, possibly because there were only two excerpts to contend with. Both director Gallant and his performers had a chance to get at least partially under the skin of these longer selections.

"Miss Saigon'' was, in fact, the surprise triumph of the evening. Lacking the type of hit songs so regularly supplied by Andrew Lloyd Webber and relying heavily on stupendous stage effects, did not augur well for the Daylesford experiment. But this short excerpt captured the poignancy of this modern-day "Madam Butterfly'', with particularly fine performances from Mark Hamilton (again), Stephanie Butler and Paul Woolgar. Even more satisfying was Bill Madden's superb use of lighting to convey the intrusive power of army helicopters, a confirmation that imagination is often unnecessarily sacrificed for authenticity on today's Broadway.

The performance came to a truly rousing end with the excerpt from "Les Miserables'', with a magnificent solo from opera-trained Franz Wohlmuth and backed by a sturdy chorus singing their hearts out in "Do You Hear the People Sing''.

The electronic score, adapted and sequenced specially for the event by Steve Gallant and Gaymont Beaumont was certainly an innovative way of confronting the eternal problem of accompaniment. On the whole, they achieved a pleasant sound and it was almost certainly an improvement on the usual canned variety.

A special word of praise, too, for the splendid costumes of Candy, Holly and Susan Holly.

This was undoubtedly one of the Society's more popular presentations. The first night audience was positively vocal in its appreciation. And how nice it was, to finally see the cast being allowed to take not one, but several curtain calls at the end. -- Patricia Calnan .

PHANTOM Steve Morgan and Cyanne Thomas.