IT'S not difficult to bleed a thesaurus dry trying to find enough adjectives to adequately describe the junior section of AAODS - a company of young people which has dominated the stage of the Borough Theatre in recent years.

Exuberant, enthusiastic and all the other well worn phrases seem hardly to cover all the bases and the good old fashioned talented seems somewhat lacking...and yet it fits so well.

With a host of runaway successess under their belts the company turned its well honed sights to Andrew Lloyd Webber's catalogue for its latest production, winning the honour of being the first group in Wales to produce his 1990s slowburner Whistle Down the Wind and once again proving that when it comes to top quality singing and performance you will have to go a long way to see better.

To get the negatives out of the way quickly this is not an easy show for young performers to cope with, dealing as it does with death and loss and the prejudices and intolerances of adults set against the innocence - or soon to be lost innocence - of the young and I felt that there were times when a failure to get to grip with some of these themes detracted from the overall picture and made the whole thing somewhat disjointed and hard to follow.

Lloyd Webber's frankly weird decision to transfer Mary Hayley Bell's story from its English setting to the American bible belt added to the difficulties for the cast with issues over accents causing problems and the complications caused by the racial subplot further clouding the water as did the countless technical problems with sound and lighting which blighted the first night, causing unforgiveable stresses to a cast already facing a huge challenge.

With that out of the way the production values themselves shone through as always.

Chorus work, as ever, was thrilling from the opening Keys to the Vault of Heaven, to the catchy Cold and the technically challenging final choruses which would quite honestly floor many adults and yet were handled by the youngest members of the cast with apparent ease.

In the central roles of Swallow and The Man Molly Brickley-Clark and Harry Jones showed a maturity beyond their years and while Harry struggled with some of the vocal challenges of the part and Molly failed at times to fully engage with the character, their performances were hugely impressive.

Excellent support was lent by Anni Rees as Brat and Tom Brace-Jenkins as Poor Baby who were endearing and cheeky in equal measure as were all the children whose off the ball playing was lovely.

As the grieving father, Boone, Alex Williams worked well, with his voice well suited to the emotion of numbers like If Your Mother and the title number Whistle Down the Wind.

As Amos and Candy Jake Griffin and Alys Le Moignan also worked well, with Henry Wheatley in terrific voice as Edward and Keane Davies, Joe Pugh and Zach Clee adding to the talented line up of principal players.

Credit must once again go to the juniors' production team of Jaci Brickley Clark and Sarah Fowler who have once again pulled off a production of which everyone can be proud.

If I were to be honest, for me this was a production which was not up to the incredibly high standard set by this company with its previous clutch of shows, but for spectacle, incredible musicality and sheer courage, it's a worthy addition to the AAODS Juniors' hall of fame.

If you're looking for a night out this week go and see for yourself - Whistle Down the Wind and its youthful cast won't disappoint.