LATE in his career, Scottish singer and comedian turned actor, Allan Stewart, is staging the performance of his life as the legendary entertainer Al Jolson.

Setting aside the media row about Stewart not blacking up – although the significance is discussed with a young Mae West of all people – this show is far more than a joyful re-run of schmaltz-filled hits.

Stewart’s Jolson scrapes off the greasepaint to the bone, as he acts out the performer’s marital nightmares and inflates the elephantine ego which made it almost impossible for him to work with others as equals.

Ed Curtis’ quick-paced direction and musical supervisor Gary Hind’s eightpiece band produces plenty of shivery moments, as Jolson’s incredible life story is explored with pathos and unexpected humour.

The slender Donna Steele earns rounds of applause as she teeters on and off stage playing everything from Jolson’s dying mother to the sex-on-legs style of Mae West – in answer to the question “Were you faking it?”

West responds: “No, I really was asleep.”

Co-star Christopher Howell (recently seen on tour as Luther Billis, in South Pacific) goes one better with nine changes of character. The opener is radio presenter Barry Gray, who sets the scene at the Winter Garden Theatre as Jolson is invited to tell his life story in 1949.

Minor complaints that Stewart’s bouncing style of song presentation gets a little repetitive and that Sonny Boy is more likely to break your eardrums than your heart, are lost in the “You ain’t heard nothing yet” parade of fondlyremembered numbers.

A packed opening night audience demanded encores which, for the multitude of Jolson impersonators surrounding me, was ragtime rapture.

■ Runs until Saturday. Box Office: 08448-112-121 theatreroyal.co.uk