These grand emotions are ably underscored by spot-on Beatles pastiches composed by Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong. The songs “hath such a charm to make bad good, and good provoke to harm,” as Shakespeare put it in a different play. They sweeten and hasten and enliven and uplift the whole enterprise. They also serve the plot, exactly as music does in Much Ado About Nothing and beyond. A key scene late in the play has been revised as a “Hey Jude”-type ballad. What in the original is an over-the-top call for murder becomes a “break up the band” moment, which leads to a joyous reunion song.

Rolin Jones' witty, puckish mash-up of a script, Jackson Gay's giddy direction, Armstrong's terrific musical homage (and where do I get the record?), and the ever-buoyant cast of mods and rockers —- and did I mention the nifty costumes, sets, arrangements and a guest appearance by the Queen of England? It all adds up to the most fun I've had at the theater since —- the night, before when I reviewed another show brimming with sass and joy, "The Book of Mormon" at the Bushnell. What a way to welcome in spring.