Our Michael presides over the Warriors, a clan of black-clad bermenschen who enjoy a special relationship with elves, and a deadly rivalry with the Warlords, a second clan of black-clad bermenschen distinguished by their negative attitude towards the aforementioned elves. The Warlords, led by the snarling Don Dorcha the Dark Lord (Daire Nolan), terrorise an elf, callously breaking her magic wand. (Bizarrely, Flatley repairs it by sticking it down his trousers.) I was confused until I returned to the programme notes: "The little spirit travels through time and space to help the Lord of the Dance protect his mythical people. Clad in a clinging gold lame tunic that gives him nipples like Reeves and Mortimer's Mulligan and O'Hare, he earns a massive round of applause before his feet touch the ground. And then the plot of the piece gears up. A portcullis rises and Flatley whirls on in a miasma of dry ice.

Not only is he a demi-god, he's an all-dancing Site of Special Scientific Interest. But as the show opens, with a leprechaun miming to a synthesised penny whistle, it's clear that something less than Olympian is on offer. The title suggests Christification, and even if he'd started blessing Bosnian orphans with the touch of a heavily insured toe, no one here was going to attempt any Cockeresque protest. Flatley's mythographic publicity machine is also pushing him towards deity status. The programme notes take the tone of Tibetan monks congratulating themselves on the choice of a new Dalai Lama: "Whatever spark was ignited in Michael Flatley at conception or birth has grown into a mighty and many-tongued fire." The posters offer him semi-naked within a different iconographic framework: here he strikes the attitude of a fascist discus thrower, a Celtic symbol blossoming from his left armpit. Even the National Geographic Society has joined in, naming him as one of the world's Human Treasures. MICHAEL FLATLEY is a cult.