Eurobeat, Milton Keynes Theatre

10:07am Thursday 17th July 2008

If laughter is the best medicine, as Reader's Digest has been telling us for years, then I have certainly taken more than enough restorative quantities of it over the past week. An especially large dose was supplied by Eurobeat - one of the funniest stage shows I have ever seen - at Milton Keynes Theatre (until tomorrow - kill for tickets).

On second thoughts, there is no need for slaughter. Eurobeat is on its way to the West End, and there will be plenty of opportunity to see it there. It opens at the Novello Theatre on September 9 (previews from September 4). Unless taste in the capital differs very sharply from my own (and I don't think it does) I confidently predict that it's going to be a massive hit.

The show simultaneously celebrates and takes the mickey out of the Eurovision Song Contest. It therefore rather cleverly appeals to all those who admire the annual international festival of bad taste, and those who can't stand it. I suppose I belong in the second category. Indeed, when I was hospitalised with a heart condition two days before the Kiev contest three years ago friends joked that this was a convenient indisposition designed to avoid attendance. (I had been supplied with tickets, and indeed the air fare, by a Ukrainian friend, and was all set to go.) Part of me, I confess, relishes Eurovision's endearing tackiness. This year's event found me in the middle of a visit to the Greek island of Naxos. Dining out on the night of the contest, I found my eye being drawn throughout the meal to a television in the corner of the room (Greek restaurants always have tellies). Just as I thought the acme of costume bad taste had been reached, along came another even worse (or better).

It was like this on Monday at Milton Keynes where a glorious parade of naffness was offered by the singers from the ten competing countries. By good fortune I found myself waving a flag - literally - for Greece whose Nana Mouskouri lookalike Persephone underwent an astonishing transformation into a sex goddess during the performance of her ditty, Oh Aphrodite. This, it transpired, had caused certain stirrings in the bosom (and other parts) of our host in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Sergei.

Les Dennis portrayed this eminent broadcaster sporting one of the more obvious syrups of the evening. Another, of course, came with Sir Terry Wigon (sorry Wogan) whose filmed message of goodwill prefaced the evening.

Throughout the contest, Sergei traded pleasantries and insults with co-host Boyka, a richly comic performance from Mel Giedroyc, whose doggy-like laugh was a brilliant touch. When Sergei told her she looked good, she returned the compliment, adding: "You polish much before you come."

Craig Christie's book is long on double entendre, most of it smutty, all of it witty. His and Andrew Patterson's songs are, almost without exception, first-class. The best compliment I can pay them (if compliment it be) is to say that all the ditties are up to the standard, and in the spirit, of genuine Eurovision entries. The Swedish outfit Alva took off Abba to a T in Same Old Song. Russia's raunchy KGBoys (the eventual winners) strutted their stuff to perfection on Ice Queen. Ireland's Ronan Corr (Scott Garnham) vanished hilariously into a thick fog of dry ice during La La La.

My favourite without a doubt, though, was Rayne & Sheiner (Natasha Jayetileke and Adam Charles-Hills) with I Love to Love to Love (Love). But since this was the UK entry, that might have been expected.

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