ANDREW Pollard's family shows have become a winter-warming regular at the Stephen Joseph Theatre.

They shared the December limelight with SJT artistic director Chris Monks's productions of more serious plays. Now writer Pollard and director Monks have united for their first show together, as the SJT puts all its eggs in one Christmas production. This Aladdin comes in two versions, one for schools, the other, a longer family show with more songs and comic business.

Pollard has headed off to London for his ninth year as Greenwich Theatre's panto dame, and while his Scarborough Aladdin is first and foremost a magical musical, his grasp of the best aspects of panto benefits his whirlwind, globe-crossing adventure.

He has an instinct for the difference between exaggeration and excess, the first amusing, the second not, and he knows how to balance magic and mystery, song and plot, storytelling and action and, in this instance, Kashgar and Norway, modern Asia and 1970s Scandi-pop culture.

Pollard's fantasy fable swaps Abanazar for Ian Crowe's Sven Gali, a Norwegian pop guru with a cast-off ABBA wardrobe, flowing blond locks and his designs on world domination once he has the Genie's magic lamp under his control. Sorry, make that the magic "lurmp", as he pronounces "lamp" in his best Scandinavian. Pollard's script has much fun with this accent – just as The Muppets do with the Swedish Chef – and even more so with Sven Gali's increasing irritation at being mistaken for a Swede.

Just when you think he has taken this running joke as far as he can, he tops it with an Iceland gag, just one reason why Pollard is a supreme writer of Christmas shows. He is aided no end by Crowe's preening performance and comic awareness.

Meanwhile, in Kashgar, Turkestan, Heather Phoenix's Sultana wants her daughter, Arabella Rodrigo's Princess Badroulbadour to marry slimy business tycoon Mr Ghobad (Andy Cryer) to plump up the ailing royal finances. However, the Princess falls for Aladdin (professional debutant Jay Saighal), the street singer from the slums below her high-rise apartment, where Aladdin's mum, Mrs Darzi (Paul Ryan), recycles even crisp packets as clothes.

Cryer is amusingly oleaginous; Rodrigo and Saighal are utterly delightful as the young lovers and both have fantastic singing voices too; and Victoria Hamnett's street-wise Nuri, the Genie of the Lamp, outshines the Northern Lights. Best of all is Ryan's "dame", even better than in his earlier SJT cross-dressing role in this summer's Cox & Box – Mrs Bouncer's Legacy. Saucy, but understated, it is a more daring way to play it than in panto.

Musical director Mark Gordon's song choices (from Happy to Celebrate) and Richard Atkinson's arrangements are spot on, choreographed joyously by Helen Thompson, while Ernest Acquah's percussive junk band bring vim to the young ensemble.

Sue Condie's designs evoke both fantasy and reality, old world and new, making a magical setting for an Aladdin that captures the best of both worlds, pantomime and actor-musician musicals.

Aladdin, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, until January 3 2015. Box office: 01723 370541 or at sjt.uk.com