THE Rowntree Players’ 2009 pantomime is all their own work, from a new script and set design by director Howard Ella and exuberant dame Barry Benson to the costumes and set painting that took six weekends of dedicated work by committee members.

This annual community show is truly a team effort, all the more so in recessionary times when amateur societies have to cut the cloth accordingly. Yet far from reducing the show in scale or gloss, if anything the reverse has applied, and the plethora of costumes by Leni Ella, Sian Davies and Heather King is both playful and dazzling, right down to the Austin Powers-spoofing walk-down wedding finale.

Monday is not the noisiest of nights traditionally for the Players, even with packs of cubs, scouts and school children present and excitable, but Barry Benson’s uber-Yorkshire dame can be relied upon to be as loud and brassy as his bottle-blonde wig.

In only his second Players’ pantomime, he has fast established himself as the dominant comic force, his Sarah the Cook stirring the saucepot of laughter almost frantically in his determination to energise the show, as he teases the audience for being slow on the pick-up or chides himself for accidentally joining in with the opposing side in the songsheet contest.

Graham Bilton’s Alderman Fitzwarren is a more gentle comedic turn and suitable foil for the bouncy Benson, not least in the flour-and-milk slapstick routine in the alderman’s cheese-making emporium.

Leon Thompson’s Idle Jack has cheek, elasticity and daffy daftness to burn, typified by his duet with Daisy the Cow in a fabulous milking-routine adaptation of Tony Christie’s Is This The Way To Amarillo, and Lee Gemmell’s slimy King Rat is vain, vile and booming yet amusingly nimble on his feet. His powerhouse singing voice could be used more often, however.

Marie-Louise Surgennor’s resolute Dick Whittington and Nicola Howlett’s gooey-eyed Alice Fitzwarren bring more humour to their love match than is the norm, to good effect, and hopefully their microphones levels can be adjusted to rise above the band in their big duet, Take That’s Rule The World.

Sara Howlett’s Tommy the Cat has feline grace and lethal rat-attack moves and Julie Harrison’s Fairy Bowbells has a craving for the centre stage that chimes with the impatient age of The X Factor’s instant celebrities, climaxing with her bringing the house down with the stroppy Diva’s Lament.

Digs at assorted York locales and Katie Price go down well and the sea-bed ultraviolet-lighting scene and a riotous rat chase around the auditorium add to the fun, as does Claire Horsley and Nicola Howlett’s varied and fresh choreography, which makes particularly vibrant use of the chorus in Supecalifragilisticexpialidicious.

Dan Hield’s musicians are lively throughout, even slipping in the guitar riff from Run-DMC’s Walk This Way. You too should walk this way, heading to the Rowntree Theatre pronto.

Dick Whittington, Rowntree Players, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, until Saturday. Box office: 01904 416751/623568.

Performances start at 7.30pm nightly plus 2pm on Saturday.