The Armada starts out in choppy waters with an albeit sober opening chorus England Or Rome which, after a brief potted history, ends with the execution of Mary Queen of Scots.

Anyway, this apparently hacked off the Spanish while Queen Bess was busily washing her hands. Mercifully the show quickly finds direction, thanks to the composer Rob Winlow himself playing a superb Dr John Dee, the mystic alchemist extraordinaire.

The Future is great fun, turning into an immediately engaging duet with Stephanie Bolsher’s angelic Sarah, his protégé. By the time Elizabeth – an excellent Jessa Liversidge – enters the fray, the echoes of Ben Elton’s Black Adder are growing louder!

Winlow’s Dee gives a cameo of Stephen Fry’s wordsmith Lord Meltchett, while Liversidge evokes Miranda Richardson’s wacky Queen Elizabeth – “I may not always be right, but I’m never wrong/Would you like us to warm the poker?” – although her song Woman Not A Man is lyrically assured.

Even better is Winlow’s My Prophecy, transforming the Dee character into a delightfully sinister pantomime version of York Theatre Royal’s marvellous David Leonard himself: great fun! Balancing this is a touching aria from Bolsher’s Sarah, which develops into a charming trio with fine contributions from Iain Harvey and Melissa Boyd.

Russell Fallon’s Sir Francis Drake seems to have been beamed up from another planet. Larger than life, he says “roger that” in response to the lovely Sarah and is a shoulder to cry on for lovesick Thomas in Once In A While, although this tongue-in-cheek ballad is actually touchingly delivered, in a warm, lyrical tenor style. Gareth Smith sings well as the rather wet spy Thomas Green, particularly in the daft but engaging If I Were You.

Despite Bolsher’s What Love Becomes being a well-crafted and delivered love song, the second half is not as strong as the first, simply because of the relative absence of Dr John Dee and the Queen herself. Indeed, Winlow’s timely reappearance in Manipulation proves to be the highlight of the show: the comic and musical timing is simply brilliant.

The chorus members are effective throughout, for example in Plymouth Town Bay, a kind of musical folk narrative with the solos democratically shared out and no-one dropping the baton.

Composer (and star performer) Winlow’s Armada seldom takes the singers out of their comfort zone, enabling them to project and perform with confidence. Huge credit must be given also to director Jim Welsman, choreographer Reece McMahon and costume designer Alan Graham to name but a few.

Armada The Musical, York Musical Theatre Company, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York. Performances: tonight at 7.30pm and tomorrow, 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 623568.