YORK St John Musical Production Society is in its 51st year, but The Witches Of Eastwick is the work of a young company learning the ropes by presenting a challenging musical that is not as familiar as the 1987 Jack Nicholson film.

Adapted by John Dempsey and Dana P. Rowe from the John Updike novel, this comedy-fantasy tells the late 1960s' story of three friends from small-town America, where most of the Rhode Island townsfolk are as prim as the ubiquitous white picket fencing.

Artist and single mother Alexandra Spofford (Hannah Lambell), newly divorced music teacher and cellist Jane Smart (Rachel Rogers) and Eastwick Word journalist Sukie Rougmont (Gemma Kean) are unfulfilled, dissatisfied and abandoned by their husbands, meeting weekly to drink Martinis and share fantasies of their ideal man.

Oh, and they just happen to be witches, although they are blithely unaware of this status until...enter one Darryl Van Horn (Sven Kluever), the mysterious stranger who has acquired the big house, to the chagrin of stuck-up, displaced local bigwig Felicia Gabriel (Siobhan Allen). One by one, the devilish Darryl courts the witches, who in turn begin to use their witch powers to ill effect.

James Wardlaw's student production could be more humorous and more assertive too but has a strong front three as the witches, in particular Kean's Sukie, the show's best vocalist, while Allen has plenty of clout as Felicia and Jessica Dale's Little Girl is a scene stealer. Kluever, meanwhile, is an unsettling, off-kilter Darryl.

Choreographer Marketa Kocianova infuses the ensemble with energy, rather more than precision, for such set pieces as Dirty Laundry, while musical director Angus Williams marshals his lively forces with brio.

The Witches Of Eastwick, York St John Musical Production Society, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, tonight at 7.30pm; tomorrow, 2.30pm and 7.30pm. Box office: jrtheatre.co.uk or on the door