Swords and sorcery may have been off the menu at the world premiere of the Armonico Consort's King Arthur but this was certainly the sweetest opera I've ever seen.

Originally written for Charles III in the 1600s, and later hijacked for the honouring of subsequent royal families, Purcell's semi-opera (essentially a play with good songs) has been re-imagined as a musical for and about the common man, complete with beer swigging, banter and dances direct from the village hall.

John Dryden's original play was based on the battles of King Arthur.

Here company director and baritone Thomas Guthrie has transferred the action to the Western Front in 1915, interpolating the original libretto, which is heavy on the pastoral, with snatches of old war songs including Hanging On The Old Barbed Wire and that old infantryman's philosophy of his predicament, We're Here Because We're Here.

In meshing the mythological and historical, Guthrie found inspiration in the work of war poet David Jones, who described the front as "a place of enchantment" and found echoes of Malory in "the sharp contours and unformed voids of that mysterious existence". Cleverly realised and beautifully sung, the outcome is an unexpectedly cosy take on the war and the supernatural, given backbone by a little militaristic trumpet.

For a start, King Arthur was present merely as a romantic notion on the lips of the battalion's comical Welshman.

Instead, the three soldiers' spiritual and superstitious belief was represented by aerialists, seen here last year in the company's acclaimed Faerie Queen. In whispy green tops and brown tights, the acrobatic trio descended post-fighting to frolic around the battlefield, skipping off to fetch three prim and rosy nurses before returning with stacks of fluffy blankets.

Our soldiers were soon tucked up on their stretchers and flirting gently with their nurses. They even managed a nuptial jig to some frisky violin before the interval, as if the war were nothing more than a false step in the dance of love.

In the build up to zero hour, Act II was mostly dominated by the lads bathing away their aches and pains with the aid of dry ice and the stage trap door, while the nurses trilled prettily but firmly that, "It's love makes us warm".

Less King Arthur, more Foyle's War on happy pills, this was nevertheless a very British take on magic. As one soldier commented as they waited in the trenches, "I don't need King Arthur, I need an 'ot bath".