Gig played on 14/01/06

What on earth is going on? Jamie Cullum, who has just performed a quite astonishing sample-driven gospel version of "Seven Nation Army", is now parading around the stage, furiously banging a drum bigger than he is, while his tight-as-nails backing band turn "London Skies" into an approximation of the Rio Carnival. Like several Ritalin-addicted toddlers in a very small man's body, Cullum bashes away with unbridled glee. Wasn't this meant to be jazz?

Well, it is and it isn't. For his detractors, Jamie Cullum will always be the demon lovechild of Wogan and Parkinson - a harmless cruise ship entertainer whose sanitized take on his grandfather's music had penetrated Britain's "Daily Mail" demographic. An utterly pointless exercise in soulless revivalism, played with a straight bat for the curtain-twitching middle-classes. And to a point, those sneering detractors are justified.

Cullum, as he'll admit several times tonight, learnt his trade playing weddings and social events. He can probably recite the "Great American Songbook" standing on his head, backwards and in Latin - and indeed, a good proportion of his act revolves around a freeform Cole Porter medley, as well as an elongated take on Eden Ahbez's "Nature Boy. (The very same "Nature Boy" that Alex Chilton covered on Big Star's legendary "Sister Lovers", although obviously, due to the hefty drug intake, that version was far more worthy.)

But, as recent album "Catching Tales" attests, a Jamie Cullum show is not solely confined to resuscitating dead art forms. There are also excursions into '70s soul ("Mind Trick"), heavy beats ("Get Your Way") and pop ("These Are The Days") as well as heartfelt renditions of Jeff Buckley's "Lover, You Should Have Come Over", Radiohead's "High & Dry" and Amerie's "1Thing". The latter, like The White Stripes' cover, is delivered solo, with Cullum deciphering the song's rhythm from the body of his grand piano and before locating its central riff with a few random stabs at the keys. This is ingenious stuff, like witnessing a high-wire walker spin plates.

Even the jazz standards, his potential Achilles heal, are given an experimental twist. "I Get A Kick Out Of You" is stretched over ten minutes and concludes with a member of Nizlopi on the double bass, Cullum on the drums and the drummer up front playing his beer bottle. They stop short of winged dolphins flying through flaming hoops, but only just. Of course, it's not all good. There's too much scat - a form of "singing" that the CIA use to break hardened terrorists - and quarter of an hour of Cole Porter is probably pushing it, but Cullum's presence is so likeable that you can forgive him virtually anything.

In fact, he stakes a valid claim as Britain's number one entertainer. Ladies and gentlemen, we present to you…the 21st Century Roy Castle.

by Adam Webb