They practised argumentative flirting in the Tardis: now Catherine Tate and David Tennant have time-travelled to 1980s Gibraltar, in director Josie Rourke's raunchy update of Shakespeare's ripest comedy.
'Phwoar' is the first response to a show which is as brash as a decade of Sun headlines. Tennant's Benedick is one of a phalanx of buff young military types, hitting the Rock in tight white trousers after a bit of Argy-bargy in the Falklands. As for Tate's Beatrice, she's a chain-smoking expat, lounging sarcastically around her wideboy Uncle Leonato's villa while his Barbie-like daughter, Sarah MacRae's Hero, gyrates in her pink bikini.
Tennant, who cut his RP with the RSC, unleashes his native Scots as regimental joker Benedick, who proves to be a better human being than his superjock best pal, Claudio (a touchingly un-streetwise Hercules in Tom Bateman's impressive stage debut). Tennant is terrific. He sends himself up in mini-skirted drag as Miss Piggy in the fancy-dress party that climaxes in Hero and Claudio's engagement, but discovers a new gravitas when he suffers love for his scornful ex.
A heart of gold evidently beats underneath Benedick's skinny Superman T-shirt. Tate's Beatrice is stroppy and charmless in comparison. She does great clowning and – when the plot thickens – real tears, but she's about as subtle as a ra-ra skirt. She often looks uncomfortable with the sparkling repartee, slouching around the lines with silly vowel sounds instead of finding the humour within. This Beatrice and Benedick clearly fancy each other but their sparring - the play's main attraction and the proof of their mutual love - falls flat.
The '80s setting is fresh and fun, but also conspicuous, confusing and forced (you need to buy the programme to understand it). The plot hinges on Hero's virginity - she is dumped at the altar by Claudio after being falsely accused of 'talking' with a man (Elliot Levey is superbly camp as her buttoned-up petty accuser).
But Hero, despite her Princess Di-inspired wedding dress, never seems like a virgin. In this booze-soaked '80s party town, where the bride and groom each cavort with strippers, I found it jarring to believe that Hero's sexist dad would expect her to die of shame after an illicit bonk.
The overblown 'Dallas' style brings out the trashy and melodramatic elements: when Hero fakes her own death and then reappears, in a ghostly directorial addition, to stop Claudio from topping himself, it's 'Romeo and Juliet' crossed with Pam Ewing's dream.
At least the retro props are sublime: Batman and Thatcher get jiggy with Miss Piggy at the costume party, and inspired fun is had with a Casio keyboard and a Rubik's Cube. John Ramm's turn as a Rambo-worshipping local cop brings a touch of much-needed genius to a comic policeman who's usually tedious. True love is the only thing that's missing from this vibrant kitschorama – that, and a full-cast rendition of Bonnie Tyler's 'Holding Out for a Hero'.