BANGS, crashes and a host of pyrotechnic effects are in store for Watersmeet audiences this month as the PHEOS Musical Players presents Gilbert & Sullivan's first full length opera, The Sorcerer.

Reading up about the work, I point out to Bedmond director Andrew Taylor that the production sounds a bit like A Midsummer Night's Dream at the county show. As the story goes, Alexis, a foolish young aristocrat, employs a sorcerer to conjure a magic love potion and add it to the brew at the vicar's tea party. But the cups get mixed up and Alexis' bride-to-be promptly falls in love with the vicar.

Andrew says: "The thing is that with it being their first full-scale piece, Gilbert and Sullivan wrote it in a quaint style and set it at a garden party at the local lord of the manor's house. Along come a pair of lovers and the main one tries to make everyone love each other. To this end he employs the services of a sorcerer whose an old Del Boy spiv type of character. What this allows us to do is use all manner of pyrotechnic effects such as teapots in flames, flashes and bangs.

"It's great fun and it's a fairy story that reads like a classy pantomime and of course it ends in complete chaos in true Gilbert and Sullivan style."

Born in Harrow, Andrew has lived in Abbots Langley and Watford before moving to Bedmond.

He has a long and distinguished career as a director. He has been responsible for many shows of differing styles including Children of Eden by Stephen Schwartz, Bellini's La Sonnambula, Malcolm Williamson's The Happy Prince and a one act comic opera for the London College of Music, for which he was highly commended by the college's director, the late William Lloyd Webber. Andrew started directing at school. His first show was aged 16 at Harrow County Grammar for Boys.

"There was a very active drama section. Clive Anderson and Michael Portillo both went there. The great thing about it was the school drama society worked very much like repertory theatre. Everyone had to have backstage experience including sound, props, lighting, the lot before they were allowed to perform or direct."

Given his experience, I ask what audiences might expect of The Sorcerer.

"We're lucky enough to have the services of a lighting designer who is the deputy chief electrician at Her Majesty's Theatre on The Phantom of The Opera, so we even have a magic wand that fires flames - it's not going to be Phantom in Ricky under any circumstances, but a lot of technology is used in the show."

As the sorcerer, Watersmeet favourite Jevan Morris gets to sing a complicated patter song and do some magic all at the same time.

"It's a truly fiendish tongue-twister," said Jevan, "and it goes at such a pace that, once the music starts, there's hardly time to draw breath. And, as if that's not enough, our lovely directors have given me a whole load of tricks to pull off while I'm singing it! I had to learn stilt-walking and juggling when I was in Barnum at Watersmeet a few years ago, but this was even more challenging. Mind you, rehearsals have been a lot of fun. Now, if members of the audience don't laugh at my jokes, I can turn them into guinea pigs"

Performances are at The Watersmeet Theatre, High Street, Rickmansworth on Tuesday, May 20 to Saturday, May 24 at 7.45pm with a matinee on Saturday at 2.30pm. Tickets: 01923 285882 (£5-£13)