It was as if Paloma Faith had got the pantomime season going in earnest at the Barbican on Friday night, and while Guy Barker was hardly Baron Hardup as he conducted the 40-plus orchestra, Faith could have been Cinderella at times, even sweeping the stage floor later on as she got into her role of a lonely lover singing torch songs. And as with all entertainment in the run-up to Christmas there was plenty of diversion from the script with bass trombonist Mark Frost even ending up falling off his chair during (you couldn’t make this up) the lively ‘Upside Down’! It could all have gone so horribly wrong, and very nearly did, when Frost took that tumble.

Opening with a Max Steiner-esque flourish redolent of the golden era of Hollywood from the full orchestra Barker had earlier explained how Down At the End of Lonely Street had its origins in the Black Gardenia club in Soho where he first came across Faith. The show was debuted at the Cheltenham Jazz Festival back in the spring and attracted a full house.

‘Lover Man’ allowed the 25-year-old singer whose voice is a cross between Billie Holiday’s and Amy Winehouse’s to take on the mantle of the ever-so-lonely young woman always unlucky in love. But ‘Son Of A Preacher Man’ didn’t suit her at all and ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ was just the wrong choice of song for a retro jazz-based programme. Yet Faith’s tottering around in 10-inch high heels on the stage, her likeable manner, and fine way of interpreting the songs with a suitcase full of gestures and arch looks as camp as Butlin’s started to win the hall over. Barker’s arrangements were a bit top heavy at times although there was space occasionally for reedsman Graeme Blevins and drummer Ralph Salmins to make their mark. But Faith got into her stride on the song Etta James made her own (‘At Last’) which she had sung at The Century of Song in the same venue just a few weeks ago during the London Jazz Festival.

The second half was much better. Barker’s instrumental overture ‘Underdogs’ from his album Soundtrack recast for a much more thundering herd was a better way in, and Faith impressed on her own ‘New York’, the perennial favourite ‘Love Me Or Leave Me’ and on ‘All Night Long’. She had changed her dress from her glamorous beturbaned and red and black evening gown look in the first half into some extraordinary feather and fur number which made her look as if she had been rummaging in the chorus girl dressing up box retrieved from The Morecambe & Wise Show. All the hammy fake drinking and finely-honed grimaces might have belonged more in a music hall revue, but in all this she allowed the audience to enjoy the corniness of the script as much as she herself was.

So in the end we all kept the faith and why not? Because it was a fun night out. The Christmas party season is certainly in full swing now and the boring old Barbican, Faith seemed to be saying, had better go with the flow. And that is certainly what the audience did as they sang back to her the words from ‘Upside Down’. Even the hapless trombonist who probably wanted to just hide his head in his hands found a wan smile as the vivacious Faith planted kisses on his grateful cheeks.

– Stephen Graham