It's quite exciting when you spot a good friend's name mentioned in a theatre programme. “Special thanks to Neurology Consultant, Dr. Simon Nightingale.” But Simon is also one of Shrewsbury's leading Humanists and I wonder what he'd make of a play that flips seamlessly between this life and the next to present the case that love conquers all - even death.

This is a fabulous re-imagining of Michael Powell and Eric Pressburger's landmark 1946 film. Emma Rice put the story on stage at the National Theatre in 2007 to wonderful effect but Theresa Heskins's new version has one big, big ingredient that makes a big, big difference - a brilliant Big Band.

The ten piece Forces' favourite Glen Miller/Benny Goodman style swing band, with a four-strong female sax section, a superb trumpter (take a bow, Jack Heydon!) and all-male, close-harmony singing combo, is the driving, foot-tapping backbone to this sensational show. Their repertoire on 1940s numbers  sensitively echoes the changing sentiment of this life and death struggle.

And the acting is absolutely top notch too.   

Thomas Dennis plays Squadron Leader Peter Carter, the 'Boy's Own' British pilot, in a very no-nonsense, unheroic way. We meet him in mid air, hanging from his disintegrating Lancaster Bomber on the last night of the war on the last of his incredible 67th raids. He knows he's got to bail out, and he knows his parachute is kaput.

We know this because he's on the radio to American homestead honey, June (lovingly played by Kaylah Copeland) who has been drafted into an east coast airbase to guide pilots like Peter home. They both know he's not going to make it, and in that brief encounter, love crackles between them.

Just when you think nothing else could go wrong, it does. The Angel sent to enforce Peter's celestial call-up misses him in the fog of war. Waking up on a beach, his own shadow proves to Peter that he's still alive. There is a rumpus in God's waiting room and the angel is sent back to fetch him. But by now Peter and June are firmly an item.

Seeing Michael Hugo's name in the programme, I wondered where Theresa Heskins was going to place him in the cast. In an act of genius, he plays the angel (Conductor 71 - for those who know the film), the gay French Fop who lost his life on The Revolution's guillotine. Michael knows how to shine (even in a most understated manner) and makes this role absolutely his own with the most subtle stage humour you're ever likely to see. There are quirky smiles, deft one-liners, dainty steps and a faint smell of onions. It's another comedy masterclass.

In an ensemble oozing with talent, Polly Lister is also perfectly, and unexpectedly, placed as the village neurologist Doctor Reeves - who has to get to grips with the pilot's heavenly hallucinations. Brain damage, surely, if Heaven doesn't exist? I marvelled at how well this innovative casting worked. In the film he's an aristocratic Englishman. Polly gives the role double-barrelled passion and panache.

The revolving stage is illuminated with a twinkling universe, crashing waves and a vibrant rose garden. The legendary Staircase To Heaven is in two parts. And whilst the upper portion hangs from the rafters, the lower steps are picked out by bands of light laid into the stage, leaving the actors having to act climbing. It's a trick employed by Alan Ayckbourn in his 1979 play Taking Steps. The innovation here is that it's a spiral staircase.

All along I wondered how they were going to handle the film's rather turgid 25 minute celestial court scene where Peter pleads for more time on Earth with his loved one.

The prosecutor is Abraham Farlan, the first man to be killed by a British bullet in the American War of Independence. So what chance does an English Pilot have? Morgan Burgess's portrayal is so light of touch and unexpectedly kindly while Alexander Bean's Judge is such a perfect re-incarnation of James Earl Jones. The scene flashes by with a blend of joyful smiles and misty tears. Powell and Pressburger's premise that Love is Supreme was given full voice.

And the band played on. The rumbustious dance routines of the first half give way to delicate, etherial love songs. I could have sworn that numbers like Dream A Little Dream and We Have All The Time In The World were 60s smash hits, but the team's homework is immaculate. They were all genuine 40's period pieces, performed to perfection.

It's a slender love story on a monumental subject matter, and an unequivocal affirmation of the afterlife.  The play runs till 19 April, at which point the band ought to hit the road and make a fortune.     

Five stars

Reviewed by Chris Eldon Lee at The New Vic, Newcastle-under-Lyme. A Matter of Life and Death continues to show at the venue until Saturday 19 April