Even by the shaky standards of show-biz biography this production pushes its luck, not least in the casting of its lead man. Glenn Miller’s plane disappeared over the English Channel in 1944, when he was 40; Tommy Steele is in his eightieth year. Miller was leader of the most successful of the great swing bands; Steele is a one-time rock and roller, now long- established as a song and dance man. How can that possibly work?

Online reviews for this show range from ‘I have been to see Avenue Q three times and STILL came out desperate to see it again,’ to ‘Favourite moment: Leaving at interval.’ While not quite falling into the second category, I have to admit it failed to appeal . . . Yes there were some catchy, quite witty if moralistic songs but the whole thing relied heavily on our remembered love of puppetry classics such as Sesame Street and The Muppet Show, and that’s where it fell down for me.

Outside Primark two friends meet.

Kelly: ‘Ere, Joyce, what you doin’ tonight?

Joyce: ‘Allo Kelly, love. I dunno, why?

Kelly: I saw that Last Tango last night at the Hippodrome.

Joyce: What’s that then?

Kelly: It’s them dancers off the telly. Them Strictly dancers.

In making the move from screen to stage The Bodyguard has become a vehicle for a stage performer, relying as it does on a good sprinkling of standalone numbers, each entertaining in themselves, yet without fully letting go of its film heritage. Some clever use of film-like stage framing is used to focus our attention and there are some short scenes of projected video to fill in some of the details for which no purely theatrical solution could be found.