STICKING a nun’s habit on a showgirl who’s witnessed a murder, hiding her in a convent and transforming her into a choir mistress sounds like a crazy idea. Put Whoopi Goldberg in the lead part, make a couple of films and you have a blockbuster. But the trump card belongs to the stage show, where Sister Act is born again.

Denise Black (ex-Coronation Street) takes on the fleshedout role of Mother Superior and the surprise of the night is her rather excellent singing voice.

Another soap star, Michael Starke (Brookside’s Sinbad), has a bit of quirky footwork as the chunky Monsignor O’Hara.

The unabashed star of the show is Cynthia Erivo’s funky Deloris Van Cartier – her energy and amazing singing voice are worth the ticket price alone.

There’s a lovely scene where Edward Baruwa’s “sweaty Eddie”, the singing lawman, does a fabulous song-anddance routine, changing costumes three times on stage.

But it’s the sight of a pack of sequinned nuns jigging about, singing their hearts out, that really steals the show.

The choreography is slick and there was a moment when I thought the singing sisters were going to break into a Tiller Girls routine as they linked arms and swung round the stage.

Liz Brotherston’s costumes are fabulous, getting ever more glittery with every scene. The devil is most certainly in the attention to detail, with new songs, a big thumping orchestra pit full of Mark Crossland’s brilliant musicians and a glitzy West End set courtesy of Klara Zeiglerova.

I must mention the backstage crew too – their scene changes were the fastest I have ever seen.

You can probably tell I loved it. Well, it would be a sin not to.

• Sister Act runs until Saturday. Box office 0844-871-3022 or sunderlandempire.co.uk