I WAS greeted with a chorus of tuneful voices and a sea of beaming faces. It was hard to believe these youngsters had been rehearsing for little over a day.

The 261 young people will put together an extravaganza of a musical called Hot Mikado in just two weeks.

I went along on Day Two of the Wycombe Swan Summer Youth Project to see how preparations were going.

Think music, think stage, think comedy and that would only be a fraction of what is going into creating the adaptation of the Gilbert and Sullivan classic, The Mikado.

East is meeting West head-on in the musical and it is all being put together by youngsters aged between ten and 19 and a few select elders.

Hot Mikado updates the musical into a 1940s style, incorporating blues, Cab calloway swing and hot gospel music, and organisers promise it will be a massive, colourful event.

The summer project at the Wycombe Swan in High Wycombe is in its ninth year with this production of Hot Mikado, and everything from set making to belting out numbers on stage is the job of the youngsters.

Joy Griffiths, project organiser since the first project, Bugsy Malone, says the experience every year has been a good one.

"This project has given some kids their first taste of independence and boosts their confidence," Joy explains.

"Normally we get letters from parents saying how much their children enjoyed their time here, but once I had a letter from a mum who said for her son it was the first time he had got on a bus on his own and the first time he had gone out for lunch on his own."

Joy is one of the adults who guide the youngsters from auditions to a full blown performance.

Brian Moorhouse, the show's costume designer, has been offering his stitching skills since the birth of the project.

Brian and his parent helpers have to make around 250 costumes from scratch in a week and a half, to be ready for a dress rehearsal.

He said: "Without the parents it just wouldn't work. We have had some real funny moments.

"When we did the Wizard of Oz we were still painting the sets at the end of act one and stitching people into their costumes in the interval. But the feeling you get when you look on the stage at the end is something you can't get anywhere else."

The project doesn't just stop at costumes and actors. During Hot Mikado you could have a 10-year-old operating the lights, a 15-year-old on sound and an 18-year-old as a stage hand.

Everything in the youth project is done by the youngsters and they are merely guided by some very proud and passionate adults.

Director Chas Rimmer is the man who takes more than 250 young people from all over Bucks and surrounding counties, some of whom have never performed before, and turns them into a professional theatre cast.

"We have made a lot of progress over the past two days," Chas says. "This is my eighth performance and I have never been in a situation when I don't think we are going to do it. I'm always confident. The kids are great, very professional."

Auditions were held back in April for budding actors and actresses and it was whittled down from 500 to 250. Other youngsters specified that they wanted to work the magic backstage rather than taking the glory with the grease paint.

Some youngsters enjoy the project so much they just keep coming back.

Eighteen-year-old Toby Hannen, from Prestwood, has been involved in the project in one way or another for the last nine years.

This year on Hot Mikado he is helping design and build sets for the big night.

He said: "It will be my last year next year, but I might still try and come back as a chaperon or something."

Former project member Sophie Garland has become the show's choreographer. She said: "I have more friends from these projects than I do from college because it's so intense.

"You go through every emotion together over the two weeks and I can see it happening to these kids too. It's like a rollercoaster ride of emotions. Real theatre!"

Tickets for Hot Mikado, which runs from August 9 to 11, are available at the Wycombe Swan box office on 01494 512000