You have to abandon all notions of political correctness while watching this 1959 musical, which takes us into a Soho world of, to use its own terminology, ponces, tarts and poofs. But while it's performed with great verve, and Elliot Davis has done a first-rate job in supplementing Lionel Bart's original score, the show now looks like a period piece.
Essentially this is a Soho pastoral. Although its writer, Frank Norman, had done time, the piece offers a romanticised vision of the London underworld in which the prevailing note, as the title song indicates, is one of nostalgia.
The show's hero, Fred, co-owns a struggling "spieler" – a mix of gambling joint and knocking shop – and wanly recalls the good old days when he was "razor king of the manor"; the main plot, eerily anticipating Jez Butterworth's Mojo, concerns his attempt to see off a gangland rival, Meatface. But this is a sanitised world in which actions have no consequences: an apprentice prostitute appears strangely unaffected by a face-slashing and Fred himself miraculously recovers from a brutal showdown with Meatface in time for the final number.
Fortunately Bart had an instinctive melodic gift and, however much one may wince at the lyrics ("Once in golden days of yore / Ponces killed a lazy whore"), it's impossible not to succumb to the oft-repeated title song. Davis, as script adaptor and musical director, has also ingeniously worked into the story other Bart hits such as Living Doll and Do You Mind?
But for all the energy of Nathan M Wright's choreography and Terry Johnson's direction, it's still difficult to warm to a number such as Contempery, in which William Dudley's delightfully shabby set is given a makeover by a camp interior decorator: society has moved on too far to take such faded stereotypes seriously. It's significant that the evening's biggest cheer comes when Sarah Middleton as a junior prostitute finally turns on her ponce – a gesture of female defiance we've been waiting for all night.
The piece is performed with great dash by Mark Arden as the fading hood, Jessie Wallace as his long-term lover, Gary Kemp as a bent cop and, most especially, Christopher Ryan as a scuttling burglar. But while it's intriguing to see the Theatre Royal paying homage to its past, I'd say that there's another Joan Littlewood musical from 1959, Make Me an Offer, far more deserving of revival.
• Until 8 June. Box Office: 020-8534 0310. Venue: Theatre Royal Stratford East.
• GuardianExtra: win a weekend break to see Fings Ain't Wot They Used T'Be
