This is how to do it. At 85, Tony Bennett scampers on to the Palladium stage in a perfectly pressed suit, a folded red hankie in his breast pocket – and before he sings a note, gets a standing ovation. Made by an audience who scream like Justin Bieber fans, rather than the respectable elders they appear to be, it is a rather premature reaction. But what follows deserves it: a 75-minute masterclass in how to entertain.
His microphone held low in his hand like a louche cigarette, Bennett's subtlety as a singer is still astonishing live. He sings like he is speaking, shooting the breeze, every syllable still peculiarly weighty with meaning and emotion. His voice is not betrayed by his age, and he still masters the tough notes, growling with revenge in I Wanna Be Around, hollering about how "the devil kicks" on Sing, You Sinners. These moments remind us of a very different Tony who has long faded in memory – the washed-up drug addict of the 1970s, who talked about helping Amy Winehouse through her troubles, in several interviews, just weeks before her death.
Winehouse is not mentioned tonight, although her father, Mitch, is in the audience – as is the strange mix of comic Noel Fielding, Adam Ant, actor Andrew Sachs and Moira Stuart, proving that here we have a singer who unites all kinds of people. Bennett's duetting partners tonight also nod towards the past and the present. Jazz veteran Cleo Laine, now 84, hobbles on stage for a touching if shaky run through The Way You Look Tonight; later on, Leona Lewis, dressed like an old-fashioned starlet in sky-blue sequins, only gels with her partner when she holds back the decibels. Bennett's effortless command of light and shade point out the problem modern vocalists have: many approach singing like a sport, rather than a method of human interaction.
Bennett embraces his audience consummately, too. Every "you" is sung to them; he salutes from the brow when they clap; no gesture seems false. He also jokes about the timeliness of singing the Gershwin song Who Cares? – with its lines about "millions of firms going under" – and calls himself and Rosemary Clooney "the original American idols". We also get dancing: 360-degree spins during Who's Got the Last Laugh Now? and a whole routine before I Left My Heart in San Francisco.
And then comes his encore to end all encores. Microphone off, Bennett sings Fly Me to the Moon. "They don't build theatres like these any more," he beams, "they just build filing cabinets." His voice soars around the stalls, the boxes, the circles; it feels as if their echoes will be heard forever more.
