MIKE Kenny doesn’t do pantomimes. Instead the York playwright adapts moral fables, from The Railway Children, Wind In The Willows and next year’s Peter Pan at York Theatre Royal to his Big Stories For Little People plays at the Playhouse.

Aladdin is his fourth such Christmas collaboration with director Gail McIntyre at the Leeds theatre, where the Courtyard is configured as a traverse stage with a bridge/walkway arcing across the middle.

The inspiration for Kenny’s adaptation and Barney George’s designs has come from the Leeds market of the modern multi-cultural age, with signs around the perimeter for the Butcher, Tailor, Delicatessen, Sweets and… Lamps.

Yorkshire primary schools, Leeds West Indian Carnival Centre and the Playhouse’s over-55s group, Heydays, all have played their part in turning the theatre into a market place, further emphasising the sense of community.

Everything is created before your eyes from the busy, bustling market’s stalls and bric-a-brac by a troupe of storytelling actor-musicians, guided through the story by Rew Lowe’s Genie and Ivan Stott, the Sultan, composer, musical director and sound designer, who is as important to these Big Stories shows as Kenny’s magical scripts and McIntyre’s ever-clear direction.

Stott’s songs vary from the humorous to the dramatic and romantic, with room for rousing crowd participation too, and his music is full of eastern influences as well as familiar western pop structures. He has a witty way with words that delights the young children – listen out for “satsumas” rhyming with “bloomers” – while his tunes are instantly appealing.

At the heart of Kenny’s re-telling of the familiar story is Gregory Bartlett’s modern-day Aladdin. He is neither handsome nor brave, he is not strong or clever; he is more of an everyman hero, who encounters his duplicitous long-lost uncle (Simon Kerrigan, in the equivalent of the Abanazar role here), and falls for a somewhat spoiled princess in dark glasses (Jenny Fitzpatrick).

The story travels a familiar route, into a cave of untold riches where Aladdin will find the magic lamp, but McIntyre’s production is alive with delightful visual surprises, such as Aladdin climbing down a rope upside down like a gymnast.

In the most striking scene of all The Genie’s turban unravels into a magic carpet that Aladdin rides in puppet form, while a dazzling show of lights rivals the night sky.

Mike Kenny is shining ever brighter among Yorkshire playwrights, and not only Peter Pan should see him fly even higher. Come 2012, his new version of the York Mystery Plays will be unveiled in the Museum Gardens in York.

Aladdin, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, until January 15. Box office: 0113 213 7700