FUNNY move for NEMusicals, read The Press headline for the York company's trial move away from the Joseph Rowntree Theatre. Not as funny as the ever-shrinking company name, mind you, but creative director Steve Tearle is determinedly steering NEM down a more progressive path, and Funny Girl suits the cabaret setting with a bar to the side of the stage.

Tearle's company creates the atmosphere of the Ziegfeld Follies on Broadway in 1928 from the moment you arrive, Tearle himself greeting all-comers with New York patter at the door. "We're trying something more experimental and something completely different for us," he said in advance. "We decided to do a full-on crazy comedy, so we've taken the bittersweet biography of Fanny Brace and broken it down to achieve the maximum comedy effect."

Tearle casts Katie Melia in the Barbra Streisand role of funny Fanny, the fearless New York Lower East Side comedienne who conquered the Follies, and Melia has the goofy teeth, saucer eyes, chicken dance and steely determination to combine comedy with pathos. After Wednesday's show, Tearle mentioned the stifling heat had been playing havoc with the microphones, and hopefully the levels will be higher from tonight to boost the impact of People and Don't Rain On My Parade.

Elsewhere, the comedy sometimes could have been crazier, but Andrew Isherwood is smoothly handsome as gambler Nicky Arnstein; Kit Stroud twinkles as best friend Eddie Ryan, Jonny Holbek scene-steals in assorted cameos; musical director Jessica Douglas corals her musical forces with purpose and Ellie Roberts' ensemble choreography has panache, roller skates and all. The New York video collages are evocative too.

NEMusicals return to the Joseph Rowntree Theatre for A Christmas Carol from November 14 to 17, but Funny Girl is unlikely to be a one-off visit to 41 Monkgate, a theatre on the rise under chairman Jim Welsman and the hyper-busy Robert Readman, who is forever updating the building and its facilities. 

Funny Girl, NEMusicals,York, 41 Monkgate, York, 7.30pm tonight and tomorrow, 2.30pm and 7.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 07759 260852 or thelittleboxoffice.com/nemusicalsyork