SPRING has blossomed late, and with its arrival comes a riot of every colour under the Aussie Outback sun in Priscilla Queen Of The Desert, a show that makes Joseph’s Technicolor dreamcoat look pale by comparison.

Priscilla began life as the 1997 cult film The Adventures Of Priscilla, Queen Of The Desert, written in the creeping shadow of AIDS.

The spin-off stage musical cannot have the shock value or novelty of Stephan Elliot’s “c*ck in a frock on a rock” movie; how could it? Instead, Elliot and co-writer/producer Allan Scott combine the film’s fearless humanity, frank, fruity humour and fabulous feathered finery with a celebration of Priscilla’s all-conquering screen impact, the power of Kylie and a shameless excuse to pack in more than 20 dancefloor fillers in one very spectacular show.

The musical’s story arc mirrors that of the movie, being built around a series of set-pieces and emotional scenes and drag costume changes galore. Where it differs is that it must build momentum in musical rather than cinematic convention and so it opens in song-and-dance mode with the Three Divas (Emma Kingston, Ellie Leah and Laura Mansell) belting out It’s Raining Men and Alan Hunter’s Miss Understanding sending up Tina Turner in What’s Love Got To Do With It?.

Only then does the story kick in as Noel Sullivan’s Sydney drag act Tick/Mitzi is called up by his wife Marion (Julie Stark) from Alice Springs, who tells him he must put on a show there and see Benji (Samuel Varley/Rhys Gannon), the son he has always found excuses never to meet in more than six years.

He needs to put together an act, and so the seen-it-all-before transsexual Bernadette (Aussie Richard Grieve) and the reckless, pleasure-seeking, provocative young Adam/ Felicia (Graham Weaver), sparring partners of old, join him on the road on board Priscilla the ageing bus.

The first half is driven by the songs – Don’t Leave Me This Way, Venus, Go West, I Love The Nightlife – as Priscilla makes her way across the desert, the journey’s progress conveyed on screens that double as windows: a very effective device by bus designer Brian Thomson.

The emotional story takes a back seat, in favour of catty verbal jousts, an amusingly gross bar-room cameo by Ellie Leah’s Shirley, and yet more spectacle atop the bus as Weaver’s Felicia lip-synchs La Traviata’s Sempre Libera, a silhouette of silk billowing behind him.

Ross Coleman and Andrew Hallsworth’s choreography and Tim Chappel and Lizzy Gardiner’s exotic costumes are the stars up to this point, but the storylines then come to the fore: Bernadette bonding with mechanic Bob (Giles Watling), Tick bonding with his son.

The set-pieces have big impact too: Thai bride Cynthia (Frances Mayli McCann) and her ping pong ball act to M’s song Pop Muzik; Macarthur Park’s cake in the rain.

Simon Phillips’s production is led superbly by Grieve, Weaver and Sullivan, now one of Britain’s most consistent young musical stars, and come the crunch of Bernadette sorting out an Outback faggot basher, Priscilla is a huge hit, just like Bernadette’s kick to the groin.

Priscilla Queen Of The Desert, The Musical, Grand Opera House, York, until Saturday. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or atgtickets.com/york