'BOY FRIEND'S' BACK - AND IT'S AS LIGHT AS EVER.

Byline: Katherine Karlin Correspondent

SANDY WILSON'S ``The Boy Friend'' presents an interesting physics problem. Take a string of songs held together by a slender, nonsensical plot, a few stock characters and some energetic dancing girls and boys. Does the center hold as a musical, or do things just fall apart?

The British musical, which first debuted in the United States in 1954, is memorable mostly for having introduced to Broadway the teenage Julie Andrews. (It has been revived since then, and improbably filmed by Ken Russell.) Andrews is back to direct this version, and she couldn't have a lighter touch. Like the star herself, the production is designed to delight - from the gorgeous Tony Walton sets, to the era-specific costumes (girls in slim flapper sheaths, boys in ice-cream jackets and boaters), to the slap-happy dancing. But watching ``The Boy Friend'' is still like eating meringue: It may be sweet and fluffy, but it evaporates as soon as it hits the tongue.

To give this frothy a musical the downward pull of gravity, you need some great songs, and ``The Boy Friend'' has some very pleasant ones. A couple - ``Won't You Charleston With Me?'' and ``I Could Be Happy With You'' - have ossified into standards, while others (particularly the yearning ``Fancy Forgetting'') are revelations. But they are not the kind of heart-stopping numbers needed to overcome the silly surroundings. Wilson, an admirer of the British entertainer Ivor Novello, writes fondly in the idiom of muted champagne horns and boop-boop-de-boop. Apparently, British popular song in the '20s was as resistant to the influence of jazz as British musicals, circa 1954, were to complex, book-based story lines.

That's not to underestimate the production's collection of major talent. Walton's set is a dream of coastal France from a children's book (imagine Madeline spending a summer vacation in colorful Nice and you get the idea). The costumes designed by Walton and Rachel Navarro are an eyeful, and John DeLuca's choreography is nonstop razzle-dazzle, highlighted by an ensemble number called ``The Riviera.''

As for the cast, they gush and squeal when they are supposed to. Jessica Grove, handling the unenviable task of filling Andrews' shoes as the ingenue Polly, is as delightful as she needs to be, but she gets swallowed up by the aggressive company around her. Nancy Hess makes more of an impression as Mme. Dubonnet, the randy headmistress; Andrea Chamberlain, Kirsten Wyatt and Sean Palmer are the young Brits trolling the seashore for romance; Paul Carlin, Drew Eshelma and Darcy Pulliam play their elders, aristocratic types who warm up in the Mediterranean sun. Bethe Austin does a comic turn as a middle-age coquette, whose cartoon French accent grows more annoying as the evening wears on.

The standout here is a dancer named Rick Faugno in a supporting role. Faugno has button eyes and legs of elastic, and he performs his numbers with a relaxed, loose-limbed swagger that fits his character, the sole American of the crowd. When he is not on stage you miss him; when he is on stage you can't look at anything else.

As for the story, the less said the better. It's not so taxing that you can't spend stretches of the second act in a daydream about watching Faugno dance the great roles: Riff in ``West Side Story,'' Bill Calhoun in ``Kiss Me Kate,'' Sky Masterson in ``Guys and Dolls.'' For now it will have to do to see him whip up an exuberant Charleston.

THE BOY FRIEND - Two and one half stars

Where: Orange County Performing Arts Center, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa.

When: 8 p.m. Tuesday through Friday; 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 and 7 p.m. Sunday; through Jan. 1.

Tickets: $20 to $65. Call [phone] or visit www.ocpac.org.

In a nutshell: Major talents expend their energy on a minor musical.

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Jessica Grove and Sean Palmer are two of the fleet-footed stars who manage to lift ``The Boy Friend'' to new heights.