Denise can sing any day

Andrew Lloyd Webber's Tell Me On A Sunday is a late-Seventies song cycle that became a theatrical concert in 1980 and now masquerades as a musical. Despite five new numbersand many updated originals, including the storming signature tune Take That Look Off Your Face, it feels old. Without Van Outen, I suspect it would feel even older. At least, at 80 minutes, it also feels short. The story is simple. An unnamed girl heads for the Big Apple to heal her broken heart, only to have it stamped into increasingly tiny bits by increasingly unsuitable men.

Apart from her mates and her mum, to whom she sends sporadic bulletins, our heroine is defined solely by the blokes who reject her. This concept feels almost as dated as the disco drums and soft-rock guitars that invade the score whenever it departs from wistful ballads or defiant torch songs.

As well as singing constantly for 80 minutes and conjuring the rest of the story from thin air and a set consisting of a few chairs, Van Outen also has to invest the heroine with character. This is where she scores.

She gives her a brittle Essex brashness as she canters around in her pedal- pusher jeans, strappy top and knock-off Jimmy Choos. This is very close to the Denise we know and love - and it doesn't hurt that we know Denise fled to do Chicago on Broadway after splitting from fiancé Jay Kay.

Vocally, Van Outen is impressive. She triumphantly hits every high note, but sometimes strains for the lower register and is best at the rueful ballads. These, however, are the best songs.

While I admire Lloyd Webber's compulsion to revise and improve his past works, he should probably have left this one alone.

Van Outen's starry turn makes 80 minutes pass agreeably enough. But then she's already enshrined as a bona fide national treasure.

Box office: 0870 890 1105.

Tell Me On A Sunday