New productions of familiar operas are often so far-fetched that you're lost without a programme to help piece together what does happen with what's supposed to happen. Not at London nightclub Heaven, however, where Richard Crichton and Dominic Gray's promenade staging of Don Giovanni casts Mozart and Da Ponte's serial seducer as a gay nightclub owner. Set in 1987, it's among the more outlandish productions I've seen, but at least there's a circulating hunk, naked but for a gleaming pair of Y-fronts, discreetly handing out programmes.

The opera's sexual psychology translates well to a gay setting. When Don's PA Leo (Leporello) recounts his exploits – which on "Clapham Common", in Ranjit Bolt's witty reworking, numbers "507 / But on Hampstead Heath it's 611" – she does so with less incredulity than usual. The three female principals are all recast as men – Alan (Anna), Eddie (Elvira), and Zac (Zerlina) – while Leo is a hard-bitten lesbian and the Commendatore a Sabatier-wielding Delia Smith. The new dynamics are convincing, particularly between Zac and his fun-girl fiancee Marina (Masetto), both of whom are eventually seduced by Don's unlimited coke stash.

Many details are apt, both for comic and serious effect: the ghost bursts through a billboard for The Phantom of the Opera, while Don's downfall is more society's disgrace than his own.

Swapping gender is easier than swapping vocal register, however, and the cleverness of the adaptation – which in addition to significant cuts and re-orderings, features a reworking of the first-act minuet in the style of the Human League, and a refreshing dose of the Pet Shop Boys – is compromised by moments of severe clunkiness. Duncan Rock sang well, but in this respect, as in others, he remained a unique figure. Still, if the execution let down the ideas then that's better, in some ways, than the more usual reverse.