Can a man, gripped by his demonic evil double, tell his story through song? Can a tortured soul, driven by a desire for a deeper understanding of the human psyche to sacrifice everything he loves, dance his way through it?

No, I wouldn't have thought so either. Which is why, when I heard about Jekyll and Hyde - the musical - I was scratching my head in confusion. Eh?

The Robert Louis Stevenson story is a classic, a modern examination of the potential for good and evil that lies within us. The musical, created in the US by composer Frank Wildhorn (who also wrote the music for 'The Scarlet Pimpernel' and the Whitney Houston hit 'Where do broken hearts go?') and writer Steve Cuden (who has written extensively for TV including the shows 'X-Men', 'Batman' and Extreme Ghostbusters') ran for four years on Broadway and is now receiving its first UK production.

Staged by Morphic Graffiti, a young company - just one-year old - the show is running off the West End in the Union Theatre in Southwark, London. But the West End experience of both cast and crew is evident in this strong production - with a roll-call of past credits including Les Miserables, Joseph and his Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, West Side Story, The Pirates of Penzance, The Woman in White and more. And word on the street is good, disappointed people were being turned away from the sold-out show on the night I visited.

The venue is very definitely 'off' West End, entry is through a tiny cafe and a notice in the Ladies advises not to flush during performances - 'you will be heard'! All the more surpirsing then to be hit with a production that's assured and polished to the highest West End standards, and all the more enjoyable to witness it from a tiny auditorium (just 50 seats). Seated in the second row I was pretty much sitting on the stage itself.

There are quite a few familiar tunes and the show never shys away from its darker aspects - for a musical the body count is surprisingly high and the brutality gasp-out-loud shocking at times (man sitting directly behind me, you know who you are). It's due to run for a few more weeks and it wouldn't surprise me if it subsequently transfers to a bigger theatre, so if you want to catch a West-End-standard production at non-West-End prices, get yourself along to it.

Jekyll and Hyde the musical is at the Union Theatre, 204 Union St, Southwark, until June 16, booking on 0207 261 9876 or online at www.ticketsource.co.uk/uniontheatre, tickets £20/£18

Photo shows Tim Rogers as Mr Hyde in Morphic Graffiti's 'Jekyll and Hyde: the musical'