Judy, Judy, Judy

After his acclaimed Garland recreation at Carnegie Hall, it was The London Palladium's turn to submit to the ultimate gay fan-boy tribute. There was certainly a crackle of electric anticipation as the celeb heavy crowd took their seats. Black suited Paul Morley anxiously read text messages, and no doubt already started to stitch together his end-piece in next months Observer Music Magazine. The chubby one from Keane happily posed for photo's and signed autographs, and Kink Ray Davies sneaked in late (and out early) with an unfeasibly young lady on his arm. Elsewhere, spotted by Hywel and Joe, were Mark Gatis and Julia Davis.

The orchestra assembled and a youthful, raven haired, conductor led them through the overture, melding together instrumental glimpses of the Garland catalogue, before a be-jewelled, gold-suited Rufus took the stage and started belting out those funny, familiar, forgotten show-tune classics. He made a decent fist of it, considering these were songs selected for a 40 year old woman to sing 45 years ago, in a different key, they didn't sit too awkwardly on the young pretenders shoulders. There was an obvious and long standing love for the material, which elevated his delivery above Robbie's sham Sinatra-esque warbling. However the limits of the Wainwright vocal range were highlighted, and in songs littered with the word 'me', his pronounciation of the personal pronoun as an elongated 'may' palled after a while.

When the show started to sag a little he invited his sister Martha on to sing Stormy Weather, and she received the biggest cheer of the night so far, as her delivery totally eclipsed that of her brother, as did her sincerity and emotional honesty. For one thing that Rufus failed to maintain was a genuine respect for the material. These are songs that were crafted by some of the finest tunesmiths of the twentieth century, but somehow his giggling self-deprecation robbed them of some of their dignity. He even seemed to snigger during 'Over the Rainbow' which is a song that simply must be played absolutely straight (ha ha) in order for it to work.

A tremendous round of applause of the end of the re-created show, set up an extended encore, which saw Martha returning to sing a divine "Someone to Watch Over Me". Things got a bit cheesy in a That's Entertainment kind of way when Rufus was joined by Garland's daughter Lorna Luft for a number before the house lights finally came up, and the greasepaint finally came off.

So not the momentous event that might have been, but a pretty unmissable one-off (well two-off anyway as he's back next week).