HOW apt that Yorkstage Musicals should pick Jekyll & Hyde for their first venture.

Two creations of separate character, Shipton Theatre Company and Rowntree Musical Theatre, are occupying one body with immediate effect, and it must be hoped that, unlike the doctor and his murdering dual personality, the relationship will be mutually beneficial.

However, this excitable York premiere is a Jekyll & Hyde show in every way.

The lighting director takes the light and shade of Robert Louis Stevenson's 1886 novella too literally in a first half where principal roles are often cast in half-light, hitting the spot is elusive, and Jekyll's transformation scene in his London laboratory aspires to ape a Pink Floyd concert.

Thankfully, the second half is altogether calmer for cast and audience alike.

Leslie Bricusse's musical from the mid-1990s is in the histrionic/melodramatic mould of Lloyd Webber's The Phantom Of The Opera and Boublil & Schonberg's Les Miserables with a chunk of Meat Loaf tossed in. You can see why Lee Gemmell, not dissimilar to Mr Loaf in hirsute appearance, has been cast as the lead. He looks older than his 20 years, and the York St John theatre student has the raw materials for the split- personality of the potion- taking Jekyll and the asylum board-killing Hyde.

His singing voice has turbo power, projection and a sweet, warm tone too, but he needs to work on strengthening his sustained notes (this will come with age). Likewise, he has a speaking voice that can charm, terrorise, seduce and turn bestial, although his acting is inhibited and stiff in the shoulders when playing the formal Dr Jekyll, by contrast with his wonderfully wild Hyde. Lee has a big presence; a guiding hand should loosen him up, and he could do no worse than observe Nick Holbek in the role of Utterson, Jekyll's upstanding friend.

Stephanie Crossley's Emma Carew, Jekyll's fiance, sings thrillingly throughout and has the Victorian manner off to a tee. Her second-half duet with Alana Gibb, In His Eyes, is like a duel that both win, but Alana's singing accent differs from the Cockney speaking voice of prostitute Lucy, and she is not alone in looking too modern.

For the spirit of the piece, look to James Fackrell's vicious Spider. Director Robert Readman needs more performers to follow suit.

Box office: 0870 770 5741/01904 623568.