It began as a joke and evolved into one of the most successful musicals ever.

`Nunsense', the "heavenly musical comedy'', now celebrating its tenth year at the Douglas Fairbanks Theatre off Broadway, has about 17 versions playing throughout the US and Canada and has been translated into 14 languages.

Last weekend the Jabulani Theatre Company opened its version as part of their season of Cocktail Theatre at the Princess Hotel. There was a heavenly surprise in store for the cast when the show's creator and director, Dan Goggin, decided to make a trip to Bermuda, to see for himself how this particular evening of Nunsense was faring.

The play, which centres around a group of nuns who stage a concert to raise funds, has Connie Dey, Denise Whitter, Fran Trucker, Khalilah Smith and Dee Martin in this local version, with Patricia Pogson as director.

"It's a wonderful cast, and I wish I could stay and play with it a bit,'' Mr.

Goggin enthused in an interview with Living .

"I managed to get here for the second night and was able to help out with a few technical kinks that are inevitable in a new show. I can appreciate that it is very difficult for the girls who only perform three nights a week and then have to wait three weeks to do it again, because it takes a while to get a handle on it. They're doing very well. I saw a big improvement on Saturday night.'' One of the problems on opening night had been the positioning of body `mikes' in the nuns' habits, a problem that Mr. Goggin was immediately able to solve.

"I had the answers because we made all the same mistakes ourselves,'' he explained.

Producer Dusty Hind revealed that Mr. Goggin's interest went far beyond technicalities.

"After the show was over, he talked to the cast for about an hour and they hung on his every word. There was such a difference on the Saturday night -- he has really helped them to understand the subtlety of their roles.'' One of the points Mr. Goggin stressed was that, having produced so many versions of the show, he had soon realised that every cast brought its own, different qualities: "We never type-cast, so the show will change as the characters change and each member has a wonderful quality of her own which they bring to the show.'' Pointing out that as in real life, every Mother Superior is different, so the focus of the show to some extent, depends on the actress playing that role.

"For instance, when Phyllis Diller was starring, she worked very hard NOT to be Phyllis Diller, but I told her that everyone wants to see Phyllis Diller and that if she had decided to become a nun, she would still be a funny nun.

She said that was the best piece of advice she had ever been given! After that, she let her own humour just flow, and the audiences loved it.'' A humorous and modest man, totally unspoilt by the enormous fame and fortune that has come his way with `Nunsense', Mr. Goggin admitted that the success of his play still "boggles'' his mind.

"The whole thing has been so enormous that I can't really relate to it! It's hard to keep everything in perspective, but my mother keeps saying, `I can't believe people are still going to see that show' -- so she brings me down to earth!'' He went on to say that when Alice Ghostley (from TV's Designing Women) took on the role, the whole emphasis changed. "It was like a ship sailing along without a rudder, because Alice is totally dippy! Rue McClanahan, who played the Mother Superior for the TV special was different again - a very strict Mother and the girls were really scared of her!'' Revealing that McClanahan would be heading up a new TV series of the show this coming spring, Mr. Goggin said that he thought Honor Blackman (of Pussy Galore fame in the Bond movie `Goldfinger') in the London version, was the funniest Mother Superior of all: "At one point she said, `I don't know why I became a nun -- I should have stayed with James Bond' -- and that brought the house down!'' No, he emphasised, there has never, to his knowledge, been a complaint from Catholics about the slightly risque jokes from the nuns: "Maybe that's because the nun's habit is so forbidding.'' He is proud to think that his show was the last play that the great actress, Helen Hayes saw.

"This was when we were playing in Elmsford in New York. Afterwards, she came backstage and said she loved it. She died not long after that.'' Dan Goggin is used to the lights of showbiz. A singer whose first big job was `Luther' with Albert Finney, he also formed a comedy folk duo and provided the background music for several Broadway shows.

"That's when I started to write. When `Nunsense' finally came along, it flew -- and now it's become a cottage industry!'' Talking about the musical's beginnings, Mr. Goggin explained that it all began when he and a friend, who was a Dominican monk, sent him, around the time the regulations on nuns' clothing were relaxed, a model of the `new' nun.

"We decided to make a card out of it, using a nun mannequin. We made up 12 of these cards and sent them off to a stationery store in New York, and by the end of the year we'd sold 2,000. So I wrote a little story to go with it. As I was working in the theatre, I made a cabaret show that opened in '82 -- just songs and little sketches that featured three nuns, a priest and a brother. It had no plot.'' That early version opened in New York at the Duplex for four scheduled weekends, but stayed for 38. So I wanted to move it into a theatre but everyone said it was a cabaret. We then discovered the nuns were the funniest, especially when they were just talking among themselves, sort of girl-talk stuff. So I re-wrote the whole thing for five nuns and that's basically the show you see now.'' Ten giddy years later, `Nunsense 2' has just opened in New York and Boston.

"But the show changes all the time, and in Bermuda, the girls need to get used to all the technical aspects and then they'll be fine.'' Gratified by the huge response from all sectors of the population, Mr. Goggin says he believes his show has helped get people back into live theatre, instead of sitting at home watching TV.

"They realise that a live show is far more fun, so it encourages appreciation of all live theatre. I think what's astonishing is that people are coming back to see it over and over again -- to see cast changes, or to bring their friends and sometimes they go around, comparing different productions. Because every show is different. It's been wonderful, being able to see the show in Bermuda.

The girls in the New York show have all been to Bermuda and told me it was one of the best places in the world, so I didn't need much encouragement!'' `Nunsense' will next be performed on January 5, 6 and 7, and again in February and March.

IT'S ALL NUNSENSE! -- Mr. Dan Goggin, author of the smash hit `Nunsense' gets together with two of his Bermuda `nuns', Denise Whitter (left) and Fran Tucker (right).