SHIPTON Theatre Company initially chose Spend Spend Spend!, the musical life story of West Riding pools winner Viv Nicholson, for its spring production.

However, the company has settled instead for Stephen Schwartz and Roger O Hirson's American musical Pippin.

"Spend Spend Spend! just didn't use the company as we have it now. There was old Viv, and young Viv, and not a lot of other big roles, and it had very much an adult theme," says lead actor Scott Garnham, who will play the title role in Pippin.

"When we have to sell shows, they have to be for a family audience, and Pippin is just such a show. Children will love the panto aspect, the songs and the silliness; adults will like the pathos."

Originally choreographed and directed by the legendary Bob Fosse for its Broadway debut in 1972, Pippin is the tongue-in-cheek story of a boy and his extraordinary journey through the ups and downs of everyday life, albeit everyday life in 780 AD or thereabouts, because Pippin is the son of the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne.

In a musical where the cast will play a band of actors that has just turned up at the Rowntree Theatre to perform its tale, audiences will encounter Pippin's frolicking grandma (played by Sandy Nicholson); his idiotic brother (Martin Lettin); his sexy, scheming stepmother (Laurie Scarth); and his pompous father.

Eventually Pippin finds the meaning of life with a widow (Nicola Pittman) and her child (Olivia Hollingworth), but nothing is ever easy for Pippin, especially when the story is being told by a strange narrator (Callum O'Connell), who has his own ending in mind. Strange, Callum?

"It is very different, like nothing I have ever seen. Even Stephen Schwartz had given up on it apparently, until Bob Fosse came on board," says Callum.

Strange, Scott? "We've got costumes in this show from the West Yorkshire Playhouse production of Martin Guerre, and we've got costumes from Top Shop. That's how broad it is," Scott says.

"The good thing about it is that it's a very moral show which says 'If you can do better than Pippin on his journey, then fine'. The moral is that life isn't about nice costumes and flashy lights.

"At the end, the stage is left bare; all the costumes, the set and the lights have gone, and Pippin is asked how he feels.

"He says, 'Trapped, but happy, which isn't too bad for the end of a musical comedy'. Trapped and happy?

"That just about sums up life!"

Callum says Pippin is a timeless and universal musical tale.

"Pippin is American, but his dad, the king, is British, and I'm playing the narrator in a soft European accent mixed with American. At the end of the day, it works this way, rather than doing it with a British accent."

After Honk! in 2002 and The Wiz last year Shipton Theatre Company looks to be springing another surprise with its latest spring production.

Pippin, Shipton Theatre Company, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, March 9 to 13, 7.30pm. Tickets: first night, £6; Wednesday to Saturday, adults £8, children under 16 £6. Box office: 01904 764429.

Updated: 15:28 Thursday, March 04, 2004