Oscar at the Crown would have the playwright spluttering indignantly into his champers

As a playwright, Oscar Wilde turned out perfectly polished, covertly queer drawing-room comedies. So this loud, proud “dystopian dance party” inspired by his life would no doubt have him spluttering indignantly into his champers. Oscar at the Crown is undeniably fun, pouring all the poppy, punchy energy of Six the Musical into a mirror-lined, nightclub-style basement space. And amid the noise, there's a chaotic pummelling of the themes of celebrity and performance that Wilde delicately toyed with.

Mark Mauriello is both the writer and star of this extravaganza, at the helm since it first premiered in Brooklyn in 2019, on the eve of the first Covid lockdown. And why cast anyone else? In this London transfer, housed in a Tottenham Court Road cellar, Mauriello plays Wilde with the energy of a twisted circus ringmaster, his eyes widening in fiery fervour as his crew of dancers strut and vogue their way through an intense dance soundtrack. They're all called Lisa, after the glam and unapologetically self-absorbed star of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills – because this unorthodox version of Wilde has turned his obsession with reality telly into a religion.

In a shining stained glass window, we see an image of his prophet and saviour, Julie Cooper – a character from teen drama The OC who apparently foretold the rise of the Real Housewives franchise, and thus celebrity culture as we know it, and thus (in an enjoyably implausible leap) the ultimate downfall of civilisation as we know it. Now, we're in a post-apocalyptic horror show where a totalitarian government exiles queer outcasts into the desert – ready to be rescued by loving tyrant Wilde, and inculcated into his safe haven of a nightclub.

It all makes a surreal kind of sense. But this set-up comes jarringly late in the show, after an extended opening sequence based on catchy original number “Amethyst and Diamond” (“Baby I'm on top of the world,” sings Wilde, lifted high above the standing audience's heads, bouffant white wig polishing the rafters). Ironically for a musical about a master of dramatic plotting, the structure is the biggest issue here. Dense, essay-like explications of Wilde's influence on celebrity culture are chucked at the audience at random, mostly missing the mark – there's only so much queer theory the human brain can take in after wall-to-wall pop bangers have pounded it into post-apocalyptic gruel. Andrew Barret Cox's earworm-filled soundtrack doesn’t really advance the narrative either: the lyrics are Eurovision levels of abstract, rather than offering specific insights into Wilde's worldview.

Still, moments in Wilde's biography really do land. Like his rushed wedding to Constance (Elizabeth Chalmers), an elaborate camp performance where his earnest bride is an afterthought. Or his betrayal by his younger lover Bosie (Zak Marx), as a baying mob pulls apart this wounded literary lion. Mauriello digs into fascinating questions about queerness and victimhood here, showing that Wilde's own sufferings didn't stop him exploiting others in turn.

Mauriello cheerfully acknowledges that this show's ending is a mess – and why shouldn't it be, when Wilde's own life story finished in ugly chaos, as he grew sick and penniless in a Paris bedsit? There's something enjoyably queer about the way that this musical rejects the Victorian conventions (both social and narrative) that constrained, then ultimately silenced Wilde. And as society cracks down on expressions of queer identity on both sides of the Atlantic, it's a welcome meditation on what it means to create a safe space as the world outside burns.