"I am confident that this work is, at the very least, the third best ever musical to be based on a biblical character whose name begins with J," says Simon Clayton.

"I did consider Jonah: The Musical but that would have been a bit limited - 'Jonah f***s with God, God puts Jonah in a whale'. And Job just seemed... pleasingly inappropriate."

For anyone unfamiliar with the poetic exposition of faith and suffering which is The Book Of Job, the plot revolves around Satan's campaign, sanctioned by God, to test the faith of a righteous man.

Through no fault of his own, Job is struck down with a "sore boil", has his asses stolen, his sheep burnt, his sons and daughters killed and, by the time Satan is through with him, can only sit on an ash heap scraping his sores with a broken piece of pottery.

And for anyone who hasn't seen the posters, Clayton's magnum opus is an attempt to render this biblical text in the style of Andrew Lloyd Webber, resulting in a production which combines the musical melodrama of Jesus Christ Superstar with the playful humour of The Life Of Brian and the blatant infeasibility of Jerry Springer The Opera. Alternatively titled Job And His Nasty Rash Of Many Colours, it promises to be both curiously moving and extremely silly.

Clayton penned the ambitious script and the 21 songs in the hope of securing a West End theatre with a million-pound budget, a cast of 200 and a modest collection of exotic livestock.

In the event, he has been working in the 50-seat Marlborough with a budget of five pounds (they had to go into the red to buy the devil's horns), seven mates and no camels to speak of.

So the cast, which includes two of The Pipettes and a lead who can "sing like Tom Waits", will read aloud the stage directions, encouraging the audience to summon for themselves the heavenly elephant dressed in white silk, the thousand midget demons and the hellish lake of fire.

"Julia from The Pipettes plays Mrs Job," explains Clayton. "She doesn't die but she does a lot of complaining.

At the first sign of trouble she says:

'Oh Job, why don't you just curse God and die?'. Which isn't the most supportive attitude."

Best known in Brighton for his satirical songs, Clayton has penned several longer works, including a children's novel about Kung Fu monks and a version of Paradise Lost done in the style of an Elvis film.

He is also a performer and has made damn sure of bagsying for himself the role of Satan, whose numbers include the tear-jerker ballad You Made Me To Love You (So Why Don't You Love Me?).

Will Job curse God to his face? Will Satan win his bet? Does God really - as Carl Jung states in his Answer To Job - "not care a button for any moral opinion nor recognise any form of ethics as binding"? Short of reading the Bible, there's only one way to find out.

"I think what I'm really trying to do is a meta-Andrew Lloyd Webber, if that makes sense," Clayton laughs. "This is an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical which, unlike the real thing, realises it's Andrew Lloyd Webber."

Starts 8pm, Tickets £5/£4, Call 01273 647100