YORK Stage Musicals has just raised the bar... again.

You may feel a company with community casting at its heart should not recruit its lead actress from the professional London ranks, but the benefits of importing Cleopatra Rey for Sister Act are there for all to see. She brings West End experience, born of of two years of starring in Dirty Dancing, as well her time in the talent-show goldfish bowl as a finalist in BBC1's I'd Do Anything.

Besides, actors of Afro-Caribbean descent are not exactly thick on the ground in York, which has created casting problems previously for such shows as Fame. What difference does it make if a recruit from outside the city comes from Leeds, Birmingham or London, once the decision has been made.

Far better to aim high and go for the best , because of the impact they can have on everyone around them, like a star-named overseas recruit joining Yorkshire's cricketers at Headingley.

This is particularly so in the case of the York premiere of Sister Act, where the effervescence of BRIT School alumnus Cleopatra Rey rubs off on the rest of Nik Briggs's cast, just as wannabe diva Deloris Van Cartier inspires the nuns into finding their singing voices when the police hide her in a South Philadelphia convent after she witnesses a fatal shooting.

Cleopatra is whooping up the Whoopi Goldberg role from the 1992 film that has been turned into a divinely delirious musical with songs in the soul and gospel tradition by Alan Menken, of Little Shop Of Horrors and The Little Mermaid fame, lyrics by Glenn Slater, and a book by Cheri and Bill Steinkeliner, who do away with childhood part of the original film. After all, they know that a combination of the adult, volatile Deloris and dancing nuns are the aces here, so why delay.

Cleopatra is electrifying from the start in a Christmas Eve disco scene that gives her two of Sister Act's best numbers, Take Me To Heaven and Fabulous, Baby!, which affirm her singing chutzpah and Deloris's irrepressible nature.

Deloris and her loose mouth make for much humour too, especially once she is constrained by a nun's habit, but definitely not in spirit, disguised as Sister Mary Clarence in the confines of the Queen of Angels Church.

The church is under threat of closure from developers, as Martin Rowley's terrific Irish priest, Monsignor O'Hara, forewarns, while Deloris is under threat of disembowelment, if hoodlum Curtis Jackson ever finds her.

Joe Wawryzniak is in fine form in When I Find My Baby , and so too are Mikhail Lim's sweaty, crush-struck policeman Lt Eddie Souther in I Could Be That Guy, Julie-Anne Smith's Mother Superior in I Haven't Got A Prayer and Jo Theaker's Mary Robert in The Life I Never Led. Curtis's lackeys, Ashley Standland, Stuart Rae and Alex Dun bring the house down with Lady In The Long Black Dress.

A J Powell's choreography is fabulous throughout; the nuns not only dance, they rap; and Cleopatra rules the stage, as her name demands she should.

Sister Act, York Stage Musicals, until Saturday. Box office: 0844 871 3024 or at atgtickets.com/york