CHRIS Monks first caught the eye with his witty refurbishments of familiar musical surroundings at the New Vic Theatre, Newcastle-under-Lyme.

The Mikado was his first such hit, originally touring ten years ago at Scarborough, and he was always likely to revive it once he became artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre last year.

In his hands, The Mikado is transformed into The Crickado in a populist spin on the Gilbert and Sullivan chestnut that transfers the inscrutable, secretive hierarchy and officialdom from 19th century Japan to the quintessentially English playing field of the Titipu Cricket Club.

This is not as mad as it might first seem, as both worlds are ritualistic, traditional and obsessed with complex life-and-death rules and both defy explanation to an outsider. What’s more, G & S were satirising their own times, so why shouldn’t Monks revamp the libretto with new topical targets to bowl at?

As in 2000, The Round auditorium is bedecked like a cricketing village green in Sue Condie’s design: there is the square, albeit short of a full length; the boundary rope and the white picket fence with a row of seating for the audience; the tea spread; a scoreboard with a blown-up cricket doll for a scorer; and a score box for piano-playing musical director Richard Atkinson and the instrument players among the actor-musician cast.

His cast may wear cricket flannels, but Monks does not desert Japan. Far from it. All the character names and plenty of the lyrics remain the same, adding another layer to the fast-moving humour, for example when Florence Andrews’ Yum-Yum announces: “Sometimes I wonder in my artless Japanese way”, in thickest Brookside-babe Scouse.

The Mikado’s minstrel son, Nanki-Poo (Dominic Brewer), now masquerades as a tennis racket-playing Australian beach-bum rhythm guitarist; Yum-Yum and her fellow little maids (Clare Corbett’s West Country Pitti-Sing and Naomi Said’s Black Country Peep-Bo) are hockey-playing schoolgals; Julie Jupp’s jilted Katisha scowls in hockey goalkeeper’s protective gear.

The more elevated the social position, the higher the cricketing role. Kieran Buckeridge’s slippery Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner, is a flannelled oaf in blazer and helmet, while Craig Thornber’s Mikado is attired as a stuffed-shirt member of the MCC, although his accent and tut-tutting manner owes rather more to “Sir” Geoffrey Boycott.

Monks has updated both Ko-Ko and the Mikado’s hit-list songs with Mock The Week precision, drawing applause from such quick dismissals as bankers, Lembit Opik and the vuvuzela, whose appearance is met with a red card by the Mikado.

As a full house on Thursday night confirmed, this big-hitting Mikado will appeal to fans of G&S and LBW alike.

The Mikado, Stephen Joseph Theatre, Scarborough, on various dates until September 4. Box office: 01723 370541.