The Man Who Would Be Sting
BAC, London

Mark Tyson

Over the last couple of years rock/pop has been transforming itself from the lowbrow 'art' form with highbrow aspirations (Beatles vs Mozart, Dylan vs Keats etc.) into a lucrative, more middlebrow enterprise. Fading rock stars across the land can now look forward to seeing their back catalogues recycled on the West End stage; a nice little pension enhancement. Money for nothing indeed.

If Ben Elton is the stadium rocker of the new musical theatre scene, Niall Ashdown is the soulful indie band. Ashdown kicks off the show by declaring his dislike of theatre and asking us what we are doing here when we could be at home watching TV. Despite his professed antipathy to theatre, he successfully draws us in to his world as a good performer should.

There seem to be a lot of one-person shows around at the moment; ranging from variations on stand up comedy, to character-based dramas, to famous people talking about their lives. Ashdown is a not-very-famous person (as yet) talking about his life. He is however a funny and likeable performer, who introduces us to his family, ex-teachers and ex-girlfriends, through a series of jokes, anecdotes and of course a lot of bopping around to a Police soundtrack.

The Man Who Would Be Sting is ironical, or is it? I'm beginning to have misgivings about irony. Irony secures the 'I was only joking' defence. In a world where Tony Blair dubs his own voice in The Simpsons, it has become increasingly difficult to tell the Establishment from the subversive.

Ashdown takes us to a simpler place, where Sting is the god-like popular icon standing above the fray. Twenty years ago Sting informed us that 'There is no political solution to our troubled evolution', and hoped that the Russians loved their children too. In the context of the Cold War, Sting's sentiments had a radical humanistic appeal. These days Sting's worldview is widespread, if not dominant. REM's awful dirge 'Everybody hurts' has become an anthem for our times.

What is evidently missing and very much needed, is an optimistic view of the future, and a re-assertion of the virtues of maturity, wisdom and experience. Seriously!

Till 6 January.