PETER Pan is the fulfilment of artistic director Damian Cruden’s vision of a theatre of all the talents for all the people in York.

It brings together the director, writer, composer and lighting designer from the ground-breaking The Railway Children; it utilises to the max the possibilities Cruden envisaged for the in-the-round re-configuration of the Theatre Royal auditorium; and it assembles a cast drawn from diverse strands of the theatre’s work.

Gathered together are professional players from this season’s repertory ensemble; three bright young things from company-in-residence Belt Up Theatre; and 44 child and teenage youth-theatre performers co-ordinated by Young People’s director Kate Plumb. This truly is community theatre.

Cruden’s Peter Pan is a celebration of the power of theatre and the act of making theatre, reinforcing the link with what we all do as children: creating imaginary worlds from what is around us, just as JM Barrie did in his 1904 play.

Even the “flying” is done as children might do so at home (rather than with wire), albeit with magical extra ‘wings’ of dry ice and Christopher Madin’s wonderful music.

Playwright Mike Kenny usually steers towards the dark side in his adaptations, and at first he appears to be doing so again with a cutting-edge opening that may scare younger children.

Quickly he switches to playful, as all 11 children from one of the four teams of Darlings and Lost Boys (some of whom who need more volume and slower delivery) engage in a fight in the Kensington Gardens abode.

The worlds of Edwardian London bedroom and Neverland overlap in Dawn Allsopp’s magical design, with wardrobes whose drawers double as steps, plus a ship’s sails, a mast and this season’s obligatory trapdoors and risers.

Rather than the memory play that framed The Railway Children, here Kenny has the children shape the story, led by Wendy (the superb Laura Soper on press night), while Belt Up’s Pirates, Dominic Allen, Joe Hufton and James Wilkes, move the scenery.

The humour is the ace in the pack: Cornelius Macarthy’s nimble Peter is often childishly amusing rather than the meddlesome Puck figure of other productions; Martin Barrass is a double delight as Nana, the dog-nurse casually walking on two legs, and the dim Irish Smee; and Robert Pickavance’s Hood has a dash of Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow about him.

James Wilkes’s little pieces of comic business as a rather posh pirate are an added pleasure.

The tone is more pantomimic than expected, right down to the big green cake and a crocodile worthy of a child’s painting.

The psychological side of Barrie’s story is played out most strongly in the role of the mother figure, typified by Andrina Carroll’s Mother pushing the Neverbird (the bird that never leaves the nest) around the bedroom.

Yet such is the almost Pythonesque humour that the play’s emotional swell does not quite tug at you, but that could be because Kenny and Cruden are playing so enjoyably to Barrie’s philosophy that childhood is about being young, innocent and heartless.

Peter Pan, York Theatre Royal In The Round, until September 3. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk