It’s loud, it’s vulgar, it’s utterly lacking in restraint. Yes, we’re in the world of late 1980s rock, with its soaring power ballads and guitar histrionics from tattooed, leather-clad axemen. Political correctness? Never heard of it. Heroine Sherrie Christian (Cordelia Farnworth) , having blown into LA from Hicksville, loses her virginity in a vigorous bout of love-making in a club lavatory with rock god Stacee Jaxx (Ben Richards, pictured), thus combining two of the show’s preoccupations — raunchy sex and bodily functions — in one go. For a third, jokes about funny foreigners, we have Nazi-style property developer Hertz (Jack Lord) and his camp confectioner son, Franz (Cameron Sharp), who tells us: “I’m not gay; I’m German!”

Hertz’s ambition to raze Sunset Strip to the ground, taking with it a noted rock venue The Bourbon Room, is a principal engine driving the plot of writer Chris D’Arienzo’s good-natured musical — a hit on Broadway and later in the West End. Another is Sherrie’s on-off romance with rock wannabe Drew, who was superbly played in charismatic, big-voiced style on the Milton Keynes first night by understudy Stephen Rolley — clearly a name to watch. Throughout a longish night there are, in fact, many fine performances to savour, not least that of Stephen Rahman-Hughes as the narrator Lonny. His comic asides to the audience lend a self-referencing, tongue-in-cheek tone to proceedings which renders palatable what might otherwise seem tacky.

But it’s the music, of course, that most come to lap up, a stirring succession of impeccably arranged classics like Final Countdown, I Want to Know What Love Is and Don’t Stop Believin’,which supplies a thrilling climax to the show.

Rock of Ages
Milton Keynes Theatre
Until Saturday
0844 871 7652/atg.tickets.com
New Theatre, Oxford, Oct 21-25
0844 871 3020/atg.tickets.com