NOSTALGIA is a subversive force, and softens us up for the continuing return to the stage of that cheeky little musical, A Slice of Saturday Night, again playing at Andrews Lane.

It is placed in the early 1960s, in a kind of ballroom of romance; the weekend dance hall where courting, not to say mating, rituals take centre stage, and romance jousts with lust. There's something for most people there.

So they're back again; the boys and girls, the cheerful vulgarity, the anatomical embarrassments, the exaggerations and the underlying realities. The music is lively, and the tuneful songs in a range from the wistful I Fancy You to the carnal Wham Bam, Thank You Ma'am. There is much dancing of the sort where the pelvic gyration and thrust are prominent, and a good quartet of musicians at the rear of the stage to belt out the rhythms.

Master of ceremonies is Rubber Legs Eric, who owns the Club A Gogo and throws his considerable weight about, even unto the audience. Rick and Sharon get together; Gary and Sue come apart; Eddie develops his designs on Bridget and Penny is generally available, as it were. They go to it with enormous energy and a lot of singing and dancing talents.

Part of their remit is to invade the audience seeking participants for the Hokey Cokey, a fate from which I was saved by a kindly youth seated beside me, who told Penny that I was with him; eternally grateful, pal.

Paul Gilligan directs, and Lorraine choreographs, the eight performers with verve and precision. Phil Clark is the too-solid Eric, and Pamela Keeley, Hazel McLynn, Josephine Mulvenna, David Murray, Ann Myler, David Shannon and Keith Willis his youthful acolytes-cum-patrons. Between them, they put it across in style.