The first thing you notice about the Broadway Palm Dinner Theatre’s production of “Cats,” naturally, is the funky, oversized set.

It’s not the junkyard we’ve come to expect from the Broadway smash, but rather an extravagant cat’s-eye view of an abandoned amusement park, complete with a broken-down popcorn cart, a Trojan-size carousel horse, colored lights stretching out over the audience and a piece of roller coaster track threatening to send a wayward coaster crashing into the dessert bar.

The fantastic set — built in Pennsylvania for the show’s 18-week mini-tour at the Palm and a run at its sister playhouse there this summer — not only speaks to how fun this tweaked “Cats” is, but to the idea that it’s purely about spectacle.

As a critic, I’m obligated to pooh-pooh “Cats” and all things Andrew Lloyd “Sir Hokey” Webber as so much treacle. And don’t expect the Palm’s show to suddenly lend this fluffy tabby anti-tale of song and dance any sudden critical credibility. But built-in bias aside, I have to admit the Palm pulled this one off. It’s a fancy feast for the senses.

The set isn’t the only thing stretching out into the audience. The actors playing cats cavorting at the Jellicle Ball (don’t ask; I still don’t know what the heck a Jellicle is) drop down into the audience often throughout the show, causing kitty mischief like climbing up the walls and over dinner tables, hissing at audience members — just begging for someone to squirt them with a water bottle.

All cats look pretty much the same to me, but there are some standouts in this cast who deserve extra congratulatory catnip: Local actress April Monte, in her citrus catsuit as Jellylorum, and Graham Kurtz (looking in Rum Tum Tugger’s black, fur-lined rocker duds like a backup guitarist for The Darkness) both seem to be having a blast in their roles. And Amy Marie Arnold, as a sultry-singing Bombalurina, is purr-fect.

Director/choreographer Marc Robin has made the show a little saucier, a little sexier, than what’s expected and that’s a good thing. He flexes his dance vocabulary, too, across the eclectic score, and seldom do the moves feel forced. Musical director J.R. McAlexander does Webber, that cheesy synthesizer-loving jerk, proud with his solid backing band. And lighting designer Russell Thompson, whose flurry of spotlights can get a bit messy, is otherwise in amazing, playful form.

Of course, for all the wowie-zowie of the Palm’s production, it isn’t without fault. There’s a problem inherent in the concept of Webber spectacle as dinner theater: It’s hard for audiences glutted from the buffet to get charged up enough to cheer for the show’s good points. Poor applause can sap the juju of a cast lickety-split — and until after opening night’s intermission potty break, it sounded like most of the stuffed-tummy audience would rather have been catnapping.

I wonder if any of the mostly senior audience keyed into the fact that they were watching a show about young whippersnappers (OK, cats) who conspire to have a depressed, lonely old lady (Carolyn McPhee’s Grizabella, wearing what looks like someone pulled one of Bea Arthur’s sequined gowns from a Dumpster) sent to an old folks’ home — which the Jellicles call the “Heavy Side Layer,” but they really mean Florida.

Maybe that’s just me.

If you’re tempted to compare the Palm’s “Cats” with the Broadway or touring productions, well — bad kitty, no! This feline festival is a completely different beast. It’s unexpectedly spunky and intimately adorable in ways that a fat-cat professional company couldn’t offer.

Oh yeah, and it serves as a reminder that “Memory,” the show’s hit ballad, sticks in your brain the same annoying way cat hair sticks to your clothes.

Curse you, Andrew Lloyd Webber.