Mixed reviews for Jason Donovan as ‘Priscilla’ hits London

Jason Donovan, the one-time Neighbours heartthrob who controversially sued the Face magazine for alleging that he was gay, is back on the West End stage as a camper-than-camp drag artiste in the Aussie musical, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. And he's likely to be little happier with this morning's reviews from the London critics than he was with that Face article back in 1992.

The super-kitsch musical is adapted from the 1994 Australian film of the same name which told the story of two drag queens and a transsexual crossing the Outback from Sydney to Alice Springs. While some are won over by the sheer panache and vibrancy of the show - Benedict Nightingale of the Times praises its "energy, fun, tunefulness and ... outrageous swirl of costumes" - most find the absence of plot and drama a letdown.

Michael Coveney of the Independent acknowledges that Priscilla is "slick, well-organised and fairly enjoyable", but accuses it of attempting "to cash in on a jukebox musical format without much wit or cleverness... It settles for a tired old showbiz camp that's acceptable to suburban and Home Counties audiences. It references the Village People. It sort of stinks."

The Guardian's Michael Billington dismisses it as "a synthetic spectacle". He writes: "Although the show is eventually about a father-and-son reunion, it never touches the heart."

As for Jason Donovan in the lead at the Palace Theatre, there are accusations of blandness. David Benedict, London theatre critic for Variety, says Donovan "possesses adequate skills, but his stage wattage never rises above warm". Coveney in the Independent says he "seems to have lost what little stage personality he'd developed as Joseph in the dream coat, and turned, well, rancid."

Australian actor Tony Sheldon playing the transsexual Bernadette gets the best notices - he's "the least one-dimensional of the bunch," according to Ian Shuttleworth in the Financial Times.

On a positive note, Charles Spencer of the Daily Telegraph likes Priscilla. "The fastidious and the squeamish should avoid this show like the plague," he writes. "Everyone else will have a ball." ·