JOHN Cooper revives his Christmas musical Humbug! in next week's ambitious production by Stagecoach Youth Theatre York at the Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York.

This adaptation of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol was written by Cooper for a company of 14 professional actors when he was artistic director of a fringe theatre in London nearly 30 years ago.

Since then Humbug! has been staged by professional and amateur companies across the country, not least Stage-coach nine years ago in a version re-written by Cooper for a company of nearly 20 members.

Now he has re-written and expanded the show again, this time to accommodate the largest ever company assembled for Humbug!: 35 performers aged eight to 18. Each of the cast has a minimum of three costume changes in this Victorian tale.

"Not since productions such as The Wiz and Pippin has staging one of our youth productions been so intricate," says Cooper. "We have a seemingly endless number of flying cloths and pieces, together with numerous special lighting effects."

The journeys of Scrooge with the three of ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future have always given Cooper a headache "in production terms". "However, on this occasion the problem has been solved thanks to the expertise of the Old Dairy Studios off Tadcaster Road, in York and three carefully-filmed sequences to be projected during the show," he says.

The Stagecoach cast will be led by Mark Pollard as Ebenezer Scrooge, Nicholas Holbek as Bob Cratchitt; Felicity Skiera as Jacob Marley; and Zoe Paylor, the Ghost of Christmas Past.

Humbug! runs from January 3 to 5 at the Rowntree Theatre with evening performances at 7.30pm plus a Saturday matinee at 2.30pm. Tickets cost £6, concessions £4, available from York Theatre Royal box office, tel 01904 623568.