How do you persuade third-raters such as Victoria Beckham and Geri Halliwell to leave music well alone? Take them to see Dionne Warwick. The 63-year-old soul-pop stylist's Croydon show is a lesson in expressive elegance. She imparts, to use a devalued word, class to every syllable.

Her professional relationship with Burt Bacharach in the 1960s was defining for both - he provided the sophisticated tunes and she made them hits. She sings the lot tonight - Alfie, Walk on By, This Girl's in Love with You - and with the languid clarity that has been her hallmark for 40 years.

Warwick glides through her repertoire, starting with Anyone Who Had a Heart, and working up to the 1980s post-disco slump that produced the less glorious (but still agreeable) All the Love in the World and I'll Never Love This Way Again.

It's the most luxurious sort of karaoke - pop standards, familiar to anyone who's ever owned a radio, sung by the understated voice with which everyone associates them. This is music made for sitting rather than dancing to and if the Fairfield Hall had installed chaise longues with cocktail dispensers, things would have been pretty near perfect.

Even better, although Warwick threatens to unveil the dreaded "new ones", she's referring to new versions of much-loved songs, which will appear on a Christmas duets album, My Friends and Me. Most notable of these is the fruity salsa makeover meted out to Do You Know the Way to San Jose? - never knew you could tango, Ms W.

The quintessential hip auntie, she treats the audience with cool amusement, mortally embarrassing a man who has the temerity to make a phone call during a number, then dedicating the Carpenters' Close to You to "all of you". Popwise, it doesn't get better than this.

· At the Assembly Hall, Tunbridge Wells (01892 530613) on August 14, and Stowe music festival, (stowemusicfestival.co.uk) on August 15.