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To the William Loveless Hall! …on Sunday afternoon for the Technical Rehearsal of Anything Goes. Different date, different location, same charming tech crew. If it’s not Open Air Shakespeare or Pantomime, then it must mean that it’s the perfectly palatable sandwich filling of the Wivenhoe Gilbert and Sullivan Society.

The young chaps pressing the buttons behind the tech desk are serving out their informal Wivenhoe arty farty apprenticeships with distinction. No time to come a cropper - it’s an on the job style of learning that money couldn’t buy up the road at the University of Essex.

No tuition fees or student loans required here - just plenty of time and enthusiasm, and knowing just when to press the right buttons when one of the stars of the show carries out the stage direction of: chunder into the piano.

BLEURGHHHHH.

Even the highly theatrical act of a technicolour yawn was transformed in the Willie Loveless Hall. If the Congregational Hall was the off repertory space for the good folk G & S, then the Big W next door has got be Wivenhoe’s answer to Broadway.

The set at the William Loveless Hall is simply stunning. Who needs the restraints of a traditional top end stage when you can create your own setting with a little theatrical imagination?

The main action for Anything Goes is played out ninety degrees left to the main stage. It is the same place where the good Cllrs of Wivenhoe Town Council take up the top table during the annual Town Meeting. Greasepaint, smoldering sexual passions and a gangster character in disguise as an upstanding member of the community - ahh, but which is which, etc…

Whilst the set takes you away aboard an old cruise liner, the costumes are the period piece to complete the storytelling. Attention to detail is immense; style is everything. There is officially no dress code when Anything Goes opens on 12th March, but you’d probably do well to at least put on a clean pair of Y-fronts.

And so shortly after 2pm on Sunday afternoon, there was a blowing of the BIG horn. It set the scene for much of the campness that follows. The cast and crew carried the first half of the show with enough energy to power the BIG horn without any plugs. It’s all about peaking at the right time, especially so when you are blowing your BIG horn.

A seamless scene change even drew applause from the small audience of family and friends. I actually felt like clapping after the piano sickness showstopper.

Not so nauseous was the arrival of the four young ladies from the Colne Bank School of Dancing. The average age of the cast may have been lowered by about twenty years, but the more mature high kicking ladies can still keep up with the young pups.

I stayed around for the first half of the Technical Rehearsal, not wanting to spoil the complete surprise for when I return as a punter later in the week. Speaking of which… tickets are still on sale for the world premier opening run which opens in… Wivenhoe on 12th March.

Performances continue through until Saturday 16th March, with tickets available from both Post Offices and the Crossways store up at the top of the town.

An overboard dog, two China men and an English aristocrat with a very big sword thrust inside his trousers: Anything Goes in Wivenhoe.