WS Gilbert’s Summer Of Roses And Wine was never more perfectly illustrated than by an evening of Savoy Opera favourites at the beautiful St Mary’s House and garden in Bramber.

Opera Comique delivered a Victorian evening around the piano with five singers and a selection of Sullivan – once, even without Gilbert – and Lehar.

Tenor Stuart Box set the scene for each excerpt with much entertaining background detail, remembering to sing A Modern Major General and A Good Judge Too, himself.

Gudrun Lehmann-Shanks’ pure crystal bell soprano elevated A Wandering One and A Witch Of The Wood to an operatic highlight whilst bass baritone Simon Smith worked magic at the other end of the scale with policemen and sergeants, various.

William Revels had to suffer a curate pale and a pompous peer leaving Sarah Smith to cope with some of Gilbert’s contralto caricatures.

She was much too pretty to be ‘sufficiently decayed’ and everyone was having so much fun with witty lyrics, a capella madrigals and unemployed burglars that they might have been in costume and on stage.

Keith Smithers gamely accompanied, a major player in an evening of enormous charm and all for charity.

Four stars