Is Beauty And The Beast really a musical? York Light Opera Company’s enterprising new production, which marks the work’s north of England amateur premiere, looks and sounds for much of the time like a cross between pantomime and the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. But its zany tricks and treats thrilled a full house at its opening on Wednesday.

Alan Menken has long been more or less Disney’s in-house composer, writing scores for several feature-length animations, including this one in 1991.

But he is hardly a household name over here. But with Tim Rice (along with Howard Ashman) responsible for the lyrics, you begin to take notice. For Rice really knows his onions: in truth, it is the libretto – impeccably projected here – that distinguishes this show from the ordinary.

The tale of a haughty prince in the French provinces who is turned into a monster for his sins, only to be redeemed by the love of a local beauty who sees past his ugliness, is the stuff of fairytale. But Rice and Ashman take it for a spoof. Martyn Knight’s entertaining direction pulls no punches in this direction either.

Working to his own choreography, which is excellently carried through by his chorus, he guys the French mercilessly, so that the story is less about the beast than his wacky entourage.

Accents are more or less straight out of ’Allo ’Allo – perfected by Rachael Wilkinson’s Babette, with Rory Mulvihill’s Lumière a close second.

Period costumes are a scream, literally so when Kathryn Addison’s Madame de la Grande Bouche (Mrs Bigmouth) parodies a spear-carrying Wagnerian heroine. Lumière’s flame-spouting sleeves and Mrs Potts’s giant teapot costume, huge fun both of them, surely come from panto.

Not for the first time, Alexa Chaplin, as Belle, easily proves the company’s trump card. Unfailingly charming, even when angry, and absolutely ravishing in her Louis XIV costumes, her touch of vulnerability only adds to her appeal. Her flexible soprano is also ideally suited to numbers like Home and A Change In Me. The only other genuine voice is Catherine Johnson’s Mrs Potts, sweet-toned in the title song.

Too many of the rest use a kind of unvarying half-song, half-speech delivery that limits their ability to colour their words or sing in tune. This, unfortunately, also applies to Joseph Knowles, who in other respects is an engaging Beast, mellowing gently back towards humanity. Richard Blackburn’s Gaston, complete with Elvis quiff and checking his armpits before another macho foray, is hilarious. Geoffrey Turner’s pompous Cogsworth completes the palace’s marvellously quirky retainers.

With Phil Redding sustaining an urgent beat over his wind-and-brass orchestra, and the chorus brimming with joie de vivre, especially in Be Our Guest and Human Again, this is a show to warm any winter evening, musical or not.

York Light Opera Company (in Beauty And The Beast; Theatre Royal, York until February 27, including Saturday matinees. Box office: 01904 623568