Christopher Gray finds Ben Elton's script is not that funny

For a supposedly right-on entertainer, Ben Elton serves up the sexist, laddish and vulgar with a rare accomplishment. This is an ideal qualification for one seeking to celebrate the career of Rod Stewart, whose preoccupations — “Booze, Balls and Birds” — were handily summarised in the coat of arms adorning the rock star’s mansion (as imagined) when Tonight’s the Night opened in the West End in 2003. Reviewing the musical at the time, I upbraided my fellow critics for showing a serious sense of humour failure over what seemed to me to be harmless, tongue-in-cheek fun. “Lighten up, guys and gals,” I advised — using words that seem a little unwise today.

Watching the new touring version of the show, however, I became convinced that I had been wrong on the matter. The unremitting barrage of smut in Elton’s script now seems hard to take.

It is not as if the music offers major compensation, commendably though it is generally performed with an onstage band under MD Griff Johnson. Rod’s song book hardly compares with that of Queen (used in Elton’s much more successful We Will Rock You). Indeed, in many cases it isn’t really his at all.

Sailing — in which we are encour-aged to participate, arms akimbo, silly hats on heads, at the show’s close — I first heard at the New Theatre performed by its creators, The Sutherland Brothers. (Not long before, I had seen Rod there with The Faces.) Reason to Believe I remember in the unaffected delivery of its creator Tim Hardin — so unlike the strangled emotion supplied here by leading lady Jenna Lee-James. The First Cut is the Deepest (Cat Stevens) calls to mind the first hit version by P.P. Arnold; I never thought to hear it rendered, as by Rosie Heath, amid agonised paroxysms suggestive of a bout of severe indigestion.

Plot? No laughing at the back! Ben Heathcote’s Stuart is a nerdy petrol pump attendant who makes a pact with Satan (Tiffany Graves), after which he partly transforms into the rock star of his homophone name. Mary (Ms Lee-James), the first to benefit from his new priapic propensity, remains faithful as his musical and sexual odyssey continues. This disappoints good-sort Rocky (Andy Rees), who seriously fancies her, to the dismay of his admirer Dee Dee (Rosie Heath).

Thank heavens for Ricky Rojas, whose portrait of the Jagger-like Stoner is actually meant to be funny.

Tonight’s The Night
New Theatre, Oxford
Until Saturday
0844 871 3020, atgtickets.com.oxford