‘All ashore that’s goin’ ashore,” cries the Purser. Those were the days — now it’s all photo identification and swipe cards. It’s unthinkable that people might just swan on and off a ship prior to departure. On the other hand, perhaps modern security is a good thing: in the Cole Porter musical Anything Goes, several of the passengers on the SS America are distinctly dodgy.

As the centenary of the Titanic disaster is duly marked, Musical Youth Company of Oxford has adroitly chosen Anything Goes as this year’s production — complete with mention of icebergs. The show’s storyline was originally to have featured a shipwreck on a trans-Atlantic voyage, but a major shipboard fire just before the premiere rendered that idea tasteless. So instead of a maritime disaster, scriptwriters Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse concentrated on a zany comedy, and MYCO director Guy Brigg highlights that aspect of the show very successfully.

With numbers like You’re the Top, I Get a Kick Out of You and The Gypsy in Me (affectingly sung here by India Shaw-Smith), Cole Porter’s score is a classic, and MYCO serves it very well.

Musical director Julie Todd and her first-rate pit band have a real feel for the music, and if any cast members feel that the score is a bit uncool, there was absolutely no sign of it. Brigg has added his own new choreography: always inventive, often challenging, this is also performed with aplomb and evident enthusiasm. The tap-dance title-song company number at the end of Act I is a real show-stopper, and there’s a particularly hilarious send-up of a solemn courtship dance.

Anything Goes not only provides abundant chorus work, it’s also awash with opportunities for soloists. The prominent role of nightclub singer Reno goes to Kelly Hampson. Her strongly sung Reno never misses an opportunity to show every available inch of thigh. Meanwhile, Daniel Richards mixes pathos with humour to great effect as the shambling Lord Evelyn Oakleigh, as does Henry Jenkinson playing love-struck Billy Crocker. George Watkins has a whale of a time as second-rate gangster Moonface Martin, as do Ellie Coote, Mollie Fowler, Becca Jones, and Lyla Schillinger as Reno’s toga-clad back-up singers. In command, James Roberts’s Captain is very good at oiling up to the passengers — no sign of a lifeboat drill, however. I saw the dress rehearsal, and it was already obvious that this excellent production was being brought to the boil at just the right moment. Go and see it.

Until Saturday. Tickets: telephone 01865 305305 or www.oxfordplayhouse.com