Aspiring songwriter Roger (Pascal) and wannabe film-maker Mark (Rapp) are poor-as-mice artists living in a run-down loft in New York's seamy East Village.

Think a youthful Bon Jovi shacked up with an embryonic Steven Spielberg (who looks like the third Proclaimer) living in penury while waiting for the big break.

Spinning around them are a constellation of impecunious bohemians including exotic dancer Rosario Dawson, street-drumming transvestite Angel (Heredia) and wacky Maureen (Menzel), a performance artist as annoying as only a performance artist can be.

Despite their brash, exuberant life-styles - a lot of singing from tenement balconies and jitterbuggin' on restaurant tables - the dark clouds of AIDs and smack addiction hang over them.

Angel is HIV positive…but it doesn't stop him donning a Santa outfit for a Liza Minelli-style Christmas Eve work-out while Roger and Dawson's character Mimi are both wrestling with the demands of coming off heroin.

There's a feel of the end-of-year party at RADA as these beautiful young things go through the motions of shattered dreams, flawed relationships and the material demands of the real world.

It not an accusation normally levelled at a musical but there are really too many songs shoehorned in here, some of which marry up the poodle-permed doodlings of a REO Speedwagon tribute band to lyrics even James Blunt wouldn't grant house space.

On the positive side, there is an undeniable intrigue about how things will shape up and some scenes - particularly the funeral service for the doomed Angel - strike a real emotional chord.

It's essentially a period piece happy to wear its theatrical origins proudly on its chest or, if you're feeling less charitable, a dated slice of melodrama featuring self obsessed luvvies.

I confess, I was drawn towards the latter. But then I have a weakness for REO Speedwagon.

Tim Evans