Written by the Pet Shop Boys and Jonathan Harvey (Gimme Gimme Gimme), Closer to Heaven looks at the lives of a group of people who congregate around a gay nightclub.

In terms of plot it's pretty much what you would expect: the club's presided over by a grand dame whose characterisation is only a hair's breadth away from a drag queen, there's sex, drugs, love affairs and a hero discovering his sexuality - which is, inevitably, gay (I don't think in the entire history of theatre a character's ever discovered himself to be a boring old straight).

The cast give their all and the production, despite a few technical difficulties, is impressive. Most of the problems lie with the show itself which is unfocussed, has some strange plotting, and contains one of the worst-written scenes in the history of the English speaking theatre.

Irish barman Straight Dave (Nathan Potter)  wants to be promoted to becoming one of the club's dancers so he can hoof his little tush off under the watchful eye of club hostess Billie Trix (Jodie Spencer). His boss Vic (Paul) is meeting his estranged daughter Shell ( Emilia Tzilios) who he hasn't seen since she was five. Shell works for evil boy-band manager Saunders (Richard Godwin) who's supplied with drugs by working class drug dealer Mile End Lee (Callum McIntyre). Will Shell fall for Straight Dave? Will Dave sign up to be part of Saunders' evil pop empire? Is Straight Dave really that straight? And will Act One end with a professional dealer delivering two grands' worth of drugs to Billie and then, for no discernible reason, leave without getting paid?

The night I saw it, the first twenty minutes were practically incomprehensible. My esteemed friend Mark couldn't make out the words and he listens to the original cast album practically on a permanent loop. I'm not sure if the music was too loud or maybe this was trouble with the microphones - as Vic's microphone kept cutting out I suspect it might have been the latter. But as soon as the dialogue was audible it was possible to relax and start to appreciate the show.

And there are some wonderful things about it.

Jodie Spencer is amazing as Trix - the German cabaret icon who's decadent, but in a motherly way. One of the funniest thing in the the show is the way she responds to Dave every time he talks about Shell. As the merest mention of the word 'girlfriend' she silences him by giving this great foghorn wail of derision. It's silly, but quite ridiculously funny.

Nathan Potter carries the hero's role with the right degree of charm, naivete and, well, sexiness - but it's his truly stunning dancing that really sets him apart from the rest of the cast. And Charlie Bedson, who gets the James Dreyfuss-esque role of Saunders' PA, gives an almost endearingly arch turn.

The songs are all fine. I couldn't really get enthusiastic about any of them - they all sound like Pet Shop Boys' songs, really. They're quite nice but don't really make for great musical theatre.

As for that scene - if you're bothered about the revelation of a plot development look away now. At the funeral of Mile End Lee (a drugs overdose since you asked), Saunders tells Lee's lover, for no apparent reason, how'd he'd been nobbing him for years and that he was dirty and deserved to die. Which, even for an evil pop emperor, is a tad insensitive. This gives the lover an opportunity to tell Saunders, in a series of grindingly obvious cliches ("he had more humanity in his little finger than you've got in your entire body") just how terrible Saunders is. And then he decides not to sign up to Saunders' aforementioned evil pop empire. It was supposed to show the little man standing up to corrupt big business - but it plays like ineptly written pantomime.

Closer to Heaven will never make it to the pantheon of great musicals, but this production certainly pulls out all the stops in making the best of a middling show.

Closer to Heaven is at the Sallis Benney Theatre, Grand Parade, Brighton

For more information and tickets view:
www.closertoheaven.info/index.html