IN between forgetful Katie’s latest histrionics on The X Factor, you may have seen the TV adverts for Dreamboats And Petticoats Four, the new album in the million-selling rock’n’roll series that spawned the musical of the same name.

Impresario Bill Kenwright is a master of the nostalgic music show, as well as the long-running touring hits such as Blood Brothers and Joseph, and Dreamboats And Petticoats combines the best assets of both formats.

It would be no surprise if it were to follow those two Kenwright cornerstones in becoming a regular visitor to the Grand Opera House.

This week marks its belated debut visit to York – Hull and Leeds have had the show already – and the heavy demand for tickets for Friday and Saturday suggest word has spread that this is just the kind of lively, funny, saucy but not rude, all-singing, all-dancing actor-musician West End hit to lighten the dark nights.

Sean Cavanagh’s set is pragmatic rather than spectacular: an attic opening conversation between Fender-guitar playing granddad Bobby (Oliver Beamish) and his granddaughter leads back to 1961, somewhere in Essex, where a backdrop of Sixties memorabilia encloses the raised band. The focus falls on the performers, attired as if from retro shoppers’ heaven, and what fantastic, fun performances they give, brimful of energy, cheek and chutzpah.

Young, spotty nascent songwriter Bobby (the outstanding Josh Capper) worships Roy Orbison from afar and “tart with a heart” Sue (Francesca Jackson) from rather closer, but still seemingly out of reach as the polka-dot peach of the local youth club run by Bobby’s dad (Beamish again).

Forever dressed in red (and with a bare midriff that surely was not the norm in 1961), she has the kind of ample poster-girl looks where the upper body stops moving five seconds after the rest when she’s dancing. The new cat on the prowl, the cocksure, somewhat older, Elvis-hipped singer Norman (X Factor alumnus Jonathan Bremner) is immediately on her radar, but innocent Bobby is not going to stand aside, even if bespectacled Laura (Daniella Bowen), his fellow songwriting talent, has the shy hots for him.

Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran could not be a safer pair of hands for this show’s easy-flowing, humorous, nostalgic, ever-so-English script, full of smart retorts and physical comedy, from dance-floor pratfalls to boxing-ring knockdowns. Look out, in particular, for Sue’s lippy friend Donna (Emily Goodenough, great surname and more than good enough), who has a ball with her quips.

The ace is in the pack is the way each vignette leads with cheesy relish into a familiar song, from The Wanderer to Tell Laura I Love Her, Bobby’s Girl to Runaround Sue. Unlike the dodgem cars that rock’n’roll across the stage, director Bob Tomson’s show knows exactly where it’s going, and does so with a big grin on its face. Girls playing saxophones, what more could you ask for?

Nostalgia has just made a fabulous comeback.

* Dreamboats And Petticoats, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday. Box office: 0844847 2322 or grandoperahouseyork.org.uk