AFTER the teenage adrenalin rush of Fame! The Musical last August, the Stage Experience summer project turns its attention to another New York musical for 2010, and this show is an ever bigger triumph.

Director and choreographer Louise Denison could spare only ten minutes for an interview with The Press during rehearsals, but you won’t hear complaints from this quarter because it only affirmed her desire to pour every minute into the fortnight of rehearsals and performances with her 75-strong company.

She is a notoriously tough task-mistress but the benefits are there for all to see, not only in the ultra-confident principal players but also in the disciplined yet expressive chorus work and the fantastic dance ensemble.

Whereas Fame! is a modern Big Apple musical, further modernised to the 21st century for last year’s show, Guys And Dolls is of an older vintage, a Broadway show from 1950 that calls for a stylised performance as well as period style.

Frank Loesser’s sharp, funny, romantic musical revels in a New York of small-time gamblers, nightclub dancers and Salvation Army band members in search of sinners to cure in the 1940s.

Denison’s swell cast looks the well-dressed part, in suits and angled trilbies and pretty dresses. At first, it may remind you of watching mobster musical Bugsy Malone, but there the children send up adult characteristics and mannerisms, whereas here the young performers are holding their own in adult roles.

George Stagnell, 15, is a typical example. This is his sixth, maybe seventh Stage Experience, and he brings suave poise, dapper looks and a smooth twinkle, as well as consummate stagecraft, to high-roller Sky Masterson.

Megan Simpson, as Sarah Brown, the devout Sally Army girl that Sky woos, has a strong sense of characterisation but pushes her singing voice a little too hard; company newcomer Callum Watt’s compulsive gambler, Nathan Detroit, has just the right mix of confidence and nervousness; and the big discovery is Leeds actress Robyn Grant, as Nathan’s long-time fiancée, Miss Adelaide, the Hot Box club’s leading dancer. Not only does she have a knock’em-dead voice and a knockout New York accent, but she brings abundant personality to each of her songs.

Assistant director Samuel Cook (or Sam Coulson as you will know him from past Stage Experience shows) has fun in his cameo as Inspector Brannigan; Matthew Hill’s Nicely-Nicely Johnson stands out too, and Jake Abbott makes a big impact as mouth-shooting little guy Big Jule. A round of applause must go to musical director Derek Chivers and his band too.

The opening-night attendance was down on past years, but Guys And Dolls deserves full houses, and you won’t have to contend with the over-loud volume of the opening night that was thankfully softened for the second half.

Guys And Dolls, Stage Experience, Grand Opera House, York, tonight at 7.30pm; tomorrow at 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: 0844 847 2322.