A party for top idols

David Benson is best known for Think No Evil Of Us, his tart tribute to Kenneth Williams, but for his latest trick he trades the Carry On icon for an entire galaxy of camp heroes, gathered for his fantasy party. The result is a fat showcase for Benson's imitative skills, if a little thin on insight.

Benson gives the Dead Ringers/Alistair McGowan topical impressionist school a wide berth, choosing instead to conjure up the dead A-listers whom he worshipped as a child. Thus, Noel Coward rubs shoulders with Garland, Sinatra and Astaire and in a rather unlikely coupling, Dad's Army stalwart John Le Mesurier encounters Orson Welles.

The zippiest moments are when Benson, all tuxedo and tap dancing, gets personal. There's a very funny reminiscence about a genuine encounter with Eric Morecambe in a Birmingham bookshop and a rather awestruck anecdote about lunch with Quentin Crisp in Manhattan.

But the show, directed by David Sant of Peepolykus, has little thrust to propel it towards the glib conclusion that it is better to cherish your idols than ape them. Apart from a brief aside about PRs faking stories to raise profiles - hardly earth-shattering - the waspish swipes at celebrity lack sting. Hollywood Babylon this ain't.

In fact it takes a welcome reprise of Kenneth Williams accompanied by Frankie Howerd to inject some sparkle into the finale. Benson can croon like Old Blue Eyes, but it is Old Flared Nostrils who lights up the theatre.

Star Struck is half of a bizarre double bill with The Wicker Woman, also directed by Sant. This distaff send-up condenses movie-chiller The Wicker Man and milks it for full panto potential. Seasoned threesome James Bachman, Barunka O'Shaughnessy and Lucy Montgomery combine cringeworthy gags with wonderfully cheap special effects and breathless costume changes.

This mocky horror show is infinitely superior to the trio's previous sub-Ernie Wise spoof, Gladiatrix. Chunky Alan Davies-look-alike Bachman excels at shameless smirking, Montgomery plays it saucy as the female cop, while O'Shaughnessy does a mean local yokel. A brainless, blazing cult in the making.

Star Struck