Gondoliers, Apollo Theatre, London

Take a pair of sparkling eyes, and throw them out of the window

Take a pair of sparkling eyes, and throw them out of the window – that's the guiding principle of this show, which dispenses with a lot more than a definite article and the loveliest tenor ballad in the Gilbert & Sullivan canon. John Doyle directed and choreographed Gondoliers, and Sarah Travis adapted and arranged the music – or, more precisely, chewed it up and spat it out. We are not told who is responsible for the new book and lyrics, but, whoever it is – you know who you are, and so does God.

The plot of The Gondoliers (everyone waiting for the old nurse to show up and identify the heir) could use a shot in the arm. But if one isn't going to retain the work's swift, sharp satire or its bubbly tributes to young love, why not play in someone else's yard? About 15 years ago, Jonathan Miller staged a brilliant Rigoletto, set in the New York Mafia neighbourhood of Little Italy, and a stunning black-and-white Mikado. But these ideas don't necessarily work together – and on this material, with this level of taste, they certainly don't.

Gondoliers begins in a Chicago restaurant, whose owners, the Cacciatorros, become involved with the Mafia. When the pirates sailed into Penzance, they were figures of legend, but mafiosi, some might think, aren't a suitable topic for innocent fun. Not so the mystery adaptor, who has them sing: "Nobody knows who's the heir to this fortune: /Intrigue and murder, drugs and extortion!" Surely, "All of those funds from illicit abortion" would scan, if not rhyme, better?

Mrs Cacciatorro – or "Chicken", as she is known – and her brood head for London, where, in the Gondola restaurant in Little Venice, they pick up some clues and some singing waitresses and head for Italy. The waitresses, who have just been married, are thrilled. "It's like Blind Date!"

Our eyes are punished throughout the production by a floor and rear wall of huge black-and-white squares, rather like the decor of a cheaply smart pizzeria.

Of the tunes that remain, most are unrecognisable, converted to boogie-woogie or cool jazz or that mechanically processed music that some people who haven't got the joke yet call "easy listening". The eight performers, who play three parts each, not only sing and scurry around, changing hats and coats, but also accompany themselves on piano, sax, concertina, violin, and several other instruments.

This bright idea is Doyle's. He says, in a programme note that is outstanding even in its genre for vanity and incoherence, that "there is a deep-rooted vein that binds" his productions: "The instruments are characters in themselves."

I wouldn't go that far, but they do create a barrier between performers and audience, emotionally as well as physically, though in this show a not unwelcome one – the charmlessness of this cast is, in some cases, pretty frightening. What this Frankenstein of a director has created is not so much a musical play, but more a party trick that goes on for far too long.