Theatre -- June 1-9.

They were the precursors to the modern entertainment sound bite, the Victorian-era equivalent of the music video.

And that is why, nearly a century after their heyday, the snappy yet wholly contained musical/comedy vignettes that made up the old-time music hall review -- an all-but-extinct theatrical form -- seem so strangely and surprisingly modern.

Of course the music hall style -- as evidenced in the BMDS' current revival of the beast -- can also seem hopelessly dated, requiring as it does a certain willingness on the part of the spectator to play cheerfully along, to check one's pretensions and preconceptions at the door and just go with the flow.

By modern standards, for example, it is somewhat jarring at the first instance of experiencing it to be such a part of the on-stage shenanigans -- as the music hall audience is invariably expected to be, and as a raucous (and obviously well-prepared) audience was on opening night. (Talk about participatory theatre!) Also, it can be more than a little disconcerting to have the review "chairman'' -- a sort of scene-setting master of ceremonies -- address the spectator directly (often eye to eye). Of course, the post-modern theatre has been full of such direct deliveries, but one isn't usually required to answer back.

In the case of the music hall review, however, the audience comebacks can be just as entertaining as the featured events, particularly if some inspired bit of interplay takes place between the audience and the chairman.

And Mr. Duggie Chapman, the irrepressible British import that the BMDS was fortunate enough to snag for their current production, is nothing if not inspired.

Described in the New York Times as avuncular, rotund and omnipresent, Mr.

Chapman serves as an admirable music hall middleman, drawing titters before the curtain even goes up (his big elastic face shifts seamlessly and uproariously from a wide Cheshire Cat grin to a world-weary deadpan smile) and inviting laughter over the most familiar of comic pretences.

Of course, most of his own lines are older than the hills themselves, consisting of such time-honoured groaners as: "Bill Isaac's playing (of the saw) is like soup du jour -- you never know what to expect!'' As delivered by Mr. Duggan, though, they seem sly, self-mocking, not stale or repetitious. At the same time, Mr. Duggan is well-served in the review by some truly funny players, particularly Annette Hallett (whose Queen of the Fairies, a sort of Tinkerbell after a decade or two of hard living, is a tragicomic treat) and Gavin Wilson (who proved an outrageously side-splitting hit as a danger-plagued Southern belle). Shining alongside these comic tours de force are some wonderful musical set pieces, including Rhona Vallender's well-warbled lament over her perpetual bridesmaid status and the lovely "Consorted Effort'' renditions of such venerable ditties as "Moonlight and Roses'' and "Harvest Moon.'' In the end, the listener-viewer is delightfully and delightedly overwhelmed by the sheer variety of the spectacle, which in this production is capped off by "a Cockney cavalcade, a cornucopia of colossal songs.'' Where, after all, can one these days see a "dramatic'' monologue, a juggling act and a cancan number in a solitary evening out? At the Daylesford Theatre is where -- and anyone who is interested in experiencing a nearly forgotten theatre form is urged to go there at once.

DANNY SINOPOLI REVIEW