OKLAHOMA! was a landmark musical in every way when it opened on Broadway on March 31, 1943.

Not only was it the first collaboration between Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein but it was innovative too, incorporating a ballet sequence and a serious plot into the well of wonderful songs.

Hammerstein's hits had dried up; Rodgers had parted company with his long-time musical partner, Lorenz Hart; together they needed a new start and what a start Oklahoma! gave them.

New Earswick Musical Society so likes the show that this week's production is the third time the society has staged it, following on from 1974 and 1991.

Casting like for like, Yorkshire farmer Neville Maw leaves behind his autumn plough to play the principal role of Curly McLain, the handsome, tenor-voiced, bow-legged cowhand. Cowhand he may be, but the crisp crease of his shirt and trousers suggest farming ain't the top of his priority list.

No, that honour goes to Laurey Williams, the pretty woman Curly is courting in a hesitant but determined manner. Helen Nichols is a former sheep farmer, but here in the fantasy land of the musical she wears the loveliest of gingham print dresses!

Nurtured by the no-nonsense, matriarchal Aunt Eller (the excellent Beryl Long), Nichols's Laurey has a healthy scepticism for men's promises, her face a picture as she tries to resist Maw's cooing singing of Oh, What A Beautiful Mornin'.

If Maw and Nichols play the courting couple in an appropriately upstanding and good, clean manner, there is comic contrast in the performances of saucer-eyed Sarah Barker as the voracious, man-hunting Ado Annie Carnes, and Stephen Kenwright as Ali Hakim, the tinkling peddler who has an unwitting habit of selling himself into a woman's arms. Further laughs, or more specifically wave upon wave of shrill laughs to silence a hyena, are provided by Helena Brown's haughty Gertie.

Clark Howard, the face of the New Earswick future, lights up the stage as Will Parker, the disingenuous lad with a fixated thing for Ado Annie, while David Cox darkens the clouds in the bellicose role of jealous, disreputable farmhand Jud Fry.

The ballet is danced by the Isobel Dunn Dancers, and the supporting roles are performed with gusto, particularly in The Farmer And The Cowman, the rowdy opening to Act Two. However, the sheer size of the somewhat coarse scenery squeezes the ensemble work in Ann McCreadie's otherwise pleasing production.

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Updated: 10:07 Thursday, November 13, 2003