ANDREW Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's first musical began life as a school show, so it is highly suited to a young cast.

York Stage Musicals duly mark Joseph's 50th anniversary by staging this sung-through pop musical with a cast of 50, one for each year, the ensemble as young as seven; the two Narrators, the highly experienced Eleanor Leaper and Stephanie Bolsher, both 21, at the other end of the age scale.

This is Joseph "as you've never seen it before", to quote director/producer/set designer Nik Briggs: a Joseph in pyjamas, or more precisely a dandy dressing gown for 18-year-old Jack Armstrong's Joseph and a Vegas Elvis white-and-gold gown for Fran Turley's Pharoah: two divine costume designs by Sophie Roberts. Look out too for the pictorial pillowcases that illustrate Joseph's famine dream.

Armstrong leads the company handsomely; Leaper and Bolsher's babysitting Narrators are in fine voice, so too is Turley's amusing "Elvira Presley", while Hermione O'Hara dances dazzlingly and gymnastically, a stand-out in Emily Taylor's exuberant choreography in her YMS debut.

Typical of the fun being had by all, Joseph's 11 brothers make a spectacular first entry, each pulling off a gym-floor leap, and later they steal the show with their cod-French chanson, Those Canaan Days. The even dafter Benjamin's Calypso is full of Caribbean joy too in the brothers' team work.

The ensemble high point is Joseph's Coat, where the whole company fills the stage with colour, a rainbow of happiness that affirms why Joseph is so ideal for youth companies.

Nik Briggs's pyjama drama is a radiant hit, aided no end by Stephen Hackshaw's band, adapt at all manner of musical styles.

Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, York Stage Musicals, Joseph Rowntree Theatre, York, 7.30pm tonight and tomorrow; 2.30pm, 7.30pmSaturday. Box office: 01904 501935 or at josephrowntreetheatre.co.uk