YORK Musical Theatre Company had a special guest at Monday's performance of Titanic: The Musical at York Theatre Royal. So special that he was given a civic reception by the Lord Mayor of York at the Mansion House.

Maury Yeston, Broadway composer and lyricist, had flown in from the United States for the British premiere of his 1997 musical, a show that pre-dated James Cameron's $200 million film, Titanic.

Titanic: The Musical was launched at New York's Lunt-Fontanne Theatre on April 23 of that year in a production that cost $10 million (more than the building of the ill-fated luxury liner itself in Southampton in 1912).

Only now, seven years later, is it being given its British maiden voyage by an amateur company from York, which has poured £85,000 into its most expensive show ever.

"I am a man of infinite patience," says a smiling Maury, seated in the Theatre Royal foyer on Monday afternoon. "I think it's erroneous to see the world of theatre as just Broadway and the West End. That's an old paradigm, so it's good that the British premiere is being done here in York, because it's a great test of a musical if you can do the show anywhere."

He acknowledges that the central focus of Titanic: The Musical is the ship itself but says: "The show is the ship but if I have done my job right, the ship is in the music. There is no scenery that can create that symphonic sense of scale that music can create.

"We're talking here about a world that went down with the Titanic; an Edwardian world that had the arrogance to think it could build a ship that couldn't be sunk; a world that had faith in the invincibility of technology."

Not without irony, the model of the Titanic occasionally refused to sink on cue at previews of the original New York production but the show went on to win five Tony awards from five nominations.

Maury has since attended productions in Belgium and Holland, as well as small-scale shows in America.

"I like to come to productions such as the York show that involve great feats of imagination that supplant the cost of the Broadway show. Titanic is a story of dreams, and so are the productions."

Titanic: The Musical, York Musical Theatre Company, York Theatre Royal, ends tomorrow. Box office: 01904 623568.

Updated: 09:02 Friday, May 14, 2004