IRVING BERLIN'S WHITE CHRISTMAS, THE MAYFLOWER, SOUTHAMPTON

NOT all the best things happen when you're dancing - but Tim Flavin's toe-tapping feet take a lot of beating.

Filling the shoes of Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby was never an option, but Flavin and Craig McLachlan are playing song and dance men Davis and Wallace, not Kaye and Crosby, and a damned fine job they do of it too.

Irving Berlin's White Christmas is, of course, one of THE great Christmas movies, but it was never perfect.

What this new stage version has done is take out the bits that worked least well, add in some more great Berlin tunes, and tidy up the story line.

The basic plot remains the same: former servicemen turned Broadway stars Wallace and Davies fall for the singing Haynes sisters (Emma Kate Nelson and Rachel Stanley) and follow them to a winter engagement at a ski lodge in Vermont. It turns out to be the pension plan of retired General Waverley (a gruff Ken Kercheval), but with no snow on the horizon, financial disaster looms until Wallace and Davis hatch a plan.

It's still not perfect - it misses the suspense of Betty's eleventh hour return to Vermont (that gets sorted quite early on) and the emotional hook of war buddies rallying around the general, which always reduces me to tears in the film, doesn't quite work here.

But if you are looking for a feelgood show, with snappy dialogue, great singing and dancing and one of the most iconic songs of all time, look no further.

The central quartet are all excellent, Phil Cole produces a scene-stealing cameo as slow-talking Ezekiel, Katie Reynolds is a cutie-pie as little Susan and there's a roof-raising star turn by Lorna Luft as the housekeeper.

So if you are dreaming of a White Christmas and want to hear sleighbells in the snow, book your ticket to General Waverley's ski lodge now.

- Lesley Bates