Think of burlesque in its modern incarnation and most people think of saucy retro glamour, titillating but never tawdry.

Traditionally however, it has more in common with the music hall tradition of cheap, low-brow entertainment. In that sense, Le Scandal is the real deal.

Brought over from New York, where it has a residency at fashionable A-list night spot The Cutting Room, the show draws together the "absolute best performers" on the scene, according to its Hove-based producer Fiona Fletcher. This doesn't say much for New York burlesque.

Host Bonnie Dunn, who should be one of the main attractions, is both tuneless and charmless, lurching shakily through cabaret standards in a fancy dress shop feather boa and far too few clothes, making limp gags and limper innuendo. It's about as erotic as a verucca sock.

The first turn by Trixie Little - a sort of perma-grinning porn cheerleader - is nothing short of gynaecological, though she redeems herself later in the show with a moderately amusing lip-synching dance routine that appears to have been pinched from a tranny club. Her sidekick, "The Evil Hate Monkey" is a hideous little creature who inspired genuine fear - at least in this audience member - when let loose in the audience.

Similarly terrifying was "extreme juggler" Marcus Monroe, responsible for a stage act as yet unrivalled in foolhardy stupidity, that involved accidentally dropping a series of flaming clubs, then, undeterred, climbing aboard a unicycle with a lit firework strapped to his head.

Throwing and mainly dropping several knives, he eventually wobbled to a halt before frantically trying to stamp out the firework and very nearly setting fire to the floor in the process. Even The Gents - the show's excellent, if underused, house band - were unable to disguise their concern.

Le Scandal is fortunate to have escapologist Eric Walton and aerialist trio Mantryx, its only genuinely impressive acts. Walton's freakish straitjacket-and-sudoko routine must be seen to be believed, while Mantryx's work on silks is beautiful and sensual. Admittedly, they do appear to have borrowed the low-budget, late-1980s-style of Eastern European circus performers, but their act is still the only sexy element of the whole thing.

It's more than a little worrying that producer Fiona Fletcher has apparently remortgaged her house to put on this show.