IT is quite remarkable that the film version of The Sound of Music celebrates the diamond 60th anniversary of its release next year.

Yeadon Theatre Company are creating their own piece of history with a new revival of the stage show for a nine-performance run at The Town Hall Theatre, Yeadon from Friday, March 8 to Saturday, March 16. The run includes three weekend matinees as well as a Sunday evening performance. It will be almost 30 years since The Sound of Music has been staged at Yeadon but advance bookings for this most-famous-of-all musicals indicate that it has lost none of its appeal.

Chair Pat Poole said: “Following last year’s sell-out production of West Side Story, we wanted to go with yet another classic hit. We knew our wonderful production team of Anita Adams (Director/Choreographer) and Adam Boniface would bring something fresh to this story and our audiences will certainly not be disappointed. We have assembled a first-rate cast including two teams of superb kids who play the Von Trapp children. This is ideal family entertainment!”

A spokesperson added: "Premiering on Broadway in 1959, the Nazi-era drama of Maria, a novitiate nun-turned-governess (played by Lucy Boniface) to the Von Trapp family, is a love story and relentlessly smiley narrative about overcoming adversity. But there is an earnestness to it all that really does make for feelgood theatre. There are also, importantly, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s infectious songs – is there another musical with as many well-known numbers? Do-Re-Mi, when Maria teaches the children to sing, and The Lonely Goatherd, when they run into her room for fear of the thunder outside, and an especially soaring rendition of Climb Ev’ry Mountain, sung by the Mother Abbess (Joan Kay) in her role as Maria’s adviser, speaking of finding God – and love - in a rousing homily. Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse’s book is uplifting, “when God closes a door, he opens a window” we hear in a conversation between Captain Von Trapp (Andre Stolarski) and Maria.

"Yet, gritty reality still sneaks into the story – far more so on stage than in the film - and this Anita Adams production brings an eerie quality to its final scenes, following the Anschluss of 1938, when Nazi officers surround the Von Trapps as they perform in their singing competition in Salzburg. “Bless my homeland forever,” sings Stolarski, in an achingly clear rendition of Edelweiss, and the song acquires sinister strains, its innocent patriotism bearing the potential to be interpreted differently by the onlooking stormtroopers. The image of this family in traditional Austrian dress could become a tableau of the Aryan dream on stage, in the hands of the Third Reich that is forcibly trying to enlist the captain, and the playful, marching-band undertones to the music turns into a booming martial beat.

"So, a musical romance that has all the bases covered: a row of performing children, a posse of singing nuns, a slew of uplifting songs and a defeat for the Nazis as the Von Trapps escape into the Alpine mountains. As Julie Andrews once said: 'What more do you need?'"

Seats are selling fast but there are some available for almost all performances and can be booked online (yeadontheatrecompany.co.uk) or from the Town Hall box office.