We Will Rock You

“The age of Gaga has dawned” has taken on a whole new meaning since Ben Elton wrote the line for his famously daft Queen musical – but the evocation of Ms Germanotta makes no more or less sense than the rest of We Will Rock You.

The mission statement is there in the title, promising as many pomp-tastic Queen songs as can feasibly be crammed into two acts. It isn't called We Will Tell You A Coherent Story, or We Will Successfully Satirise The Modern Music Industry, which is just as well.

Certainly the audience on opening night seemed to go home happy – but were they really rocked? This is musical theatre, after all, and therein lies one of the show's many contradictions.

The striking opening scene features pop clones preaching the Gaga gospel of evil corporation Globalsoft, with lyrics tweaked to fit the setting of a dystopia in which individuality is suppressed, instruments are banned and kids have urls instead of names. But of course the same performers - all perfect teeth and tight abs - also play the bohemians, who may be "alternative" but who also dance perfectly in sync during Crazy Little Thing Called Love.

On one hand, Elton has made a joke of the fact that Queen would not be an obvious choice for icons of “real” music, but would provide just the right kind of euphoric soundtrack for a stadium-based political uprising. He's also happy to stretch credibility to breaking point for the sake of some gender-swap gags that don't feel entirely in keeping with the Queen spirit.

However, it's the songs that matter here, and in Noel Sullivan the tour certainly has a vocally remarkable leading man. If the chemistry between his Galileo and Amanda Coutts's Scaramouche doesn't quite spark, it's the fault of clunky writing rather than any lack of passion in the singing.

Scotland's Jenny Douglas was certainly the most rock contestant on Over The Rainbow, and while that's perhaps not saying much she makes a strong, energetic debut here as Meat. Elsewhere, Jonathan Wilkes feels bigger than his evil henchman role and sings Tiffany Graves's underwhelming and sometimes unpleasantly shrill Killer Queen off the stage.

By the opening bars of the title song, the story is forgotten - along with its message about "real music" when Scaramouche picks up a guitar - and the show goes into full-blown singalong mode.

Is it unreasonable to expect more than a loose shackling together of hits from a modern musical? Those who are genuinely nostalgic for proper rock 'n' roll should hold out for a return of Dreamboats and Petticoats. Loyal viewers of The X Factor may in theory be in league with the villians of this piece, but they're probably its target audience.