THEY don't make musicals like South Pacific any more. All those songs with tunes and words you could remember for a lifetime; all those corny sentiments and sticky melodrama - amazing what people used to find entertaining.
They still do. And what a joy to discover last night that Rodgers and Hammerstein's multi-award-winning hit has been revived with every bit of its 45-year-old magic gloriously intact.
This is a knockout production, utterly faithful to the original and made all the more spectacular by John O'Connell's richly colourful staging and Brian Thomson's set design with its hydraulic and aerial wonders.
The cast? Absolutely spot on, with the melodious Paige O'Hara and Andre Jobin setting the pace as Ensign Nellie Forbush and Emile De Becque.
Roz Ryan's Bloody Mary is as deliciously crude and endearing as you could wish for. Philip Gould and Jemma Wilks are young, blighted love personified and all the more affecting thanks to daring director Christopher Renshaw. A semi-naked Liat would never have made it past the censors in 1949, but times have changed even in conservative Hong Kong - or have they? Beneath the saccharine are the ugly realities of war and racism - reminders that for all its mawkishness and rah-rah patriotism, South Pacific had messages that haven't lost their impact.
Neither have Rodgers and Hammerstein's music - every one of those songs has stood the test of time.