How do you approach the African- American saga afresh, telling its well known tale of horror, terror and oppression one more time and still touch the human heart? With the music. With sensitivity and humour. That is the achievement of writer Elizabeth van Dyke, and the cast of Great Men of Gospel.

Last night at City Hall Theatre they opened their three night run to a large and very responsive audience, who in the time honoured traditions of ‘Church', responded on cue time and again when called.

Using sparse and evocative sound cues to suggest rather than describe events, this work invited the audience's active, imaginative participation, to ‘hear' the sound of shackles, pursuing hounds, and so on. It used tableaux-like poses to suggest larger settings.

Beginning the story with dance and the sound of drumming, the narrator (Jerome Preston Bates) takes us through the capture and transportation of Africans to slave markets, the forced name changes, and the new reality when music was their comfort and solace. Spirit and creativity were the tools of survival.

The writer skilfully sequences the songs which actually take on the main narrative burden, the narrator's function being then to link the songs, by briefly creating their appropriate setting.

The ensemble, made up of bass Harry Burney, baritone Horace Smith and tenor Gary Vincent, sings well enough, better when ably accompanied by Cliff Terry who later does a comic turn as the outlandish Charles Hollingsworth.

We are guided through different era, as, for example, the post-First World War when returning soldiers were lynched for wearing uniform. These facts are merely stated, and are all the more powerful for their baldness, as the means to set the scene for the next songs.

And what songs. This is a sampling: ‘Didn't my Lord Deliver Daniel', ‘Swing Low', ‘Steal Away', ‘I Been ‘buked',and so on.

The narrative moves us into the first great gospel era, telling Chas Dawson's story of leaving barrell house blues playing to dedicate his art to the Lord and being so discouraged that he ‘almost got right back to singing the blues'.

Putting the black religious experience on stage calls for care, most especially when the artists are as skilled as these. There are moments when what on stage is ‘church' and calls forth an authentic response from believers .

Since there remains two nights it is perhaps unfair to give too much away. There are delights to be had that were better left unheralded. Suffice it to say that there is an unsuspected vein of humour mined here that yet remains loving and respectful. There is by now some distance, and a new generation may not be as intimidated by the grandeur of tradition out of seeing and telling ‘inside' jokes

Thom.A Dorsey, The Rev. James Cleveland, Edwin Hawkins and a host of others have their stories briefly but effectively sketched.

The costumes tell their own story, as do the antic exaggerations of the performers. Suddenly you realise that this is great fun, as well as great music and theatre. Names of groups and their hit songs are cleverly woven into song . No one of note it seems has been left out. The name of the piece is Great men... perhaps ms Van Dyke has a sequel in mind that deals with Great Women of Gospel. that would be something to see too, doubtless.

They show ends celebrating the triumph of this great music and honours its makers, from the early cruel beginnings, celebrating the Spirit that at once defines and validates its makers.

You should see this show.

RON LIGHTBOURNE