How, then, is a revered singer with a rich back catalogue but nothing of note for more than 20 years to approach a concert?

Simple: tell her life story (including the infomercial years, but not, alas, the drugs bust and tax difficulties) and intersperse it with her hits and songs that her major songwriters, Burt Bacharach and Hal David, first gave to others.

Time is catching up with the 67-year-old and not merely because a damaged ankle rendered her almost immobile.

She forgot the words to I Say a Little Prayer and her percussionist's name when she introduced her dowdy eight-piece band, which found room for three keyboardists but no lead guitar player.

Her voice, though, was in fine fettle, especially during sparkling arrangements of that sugar-coated lament for butchered dreams, Do You Know the Way to San Jose? and a gorgeous (Theme From) Valley of the Dolls, while even the lumpen Bee Gees schlock that is Heartbreaker benefited from a brisk makeover.

Although she told her tale in the third person, Warwick's speaking voice was as mesmerising as her singing and she proved a feisty, ego-driven raconteur, blessed with comedy timing and unafraid to castigate Bacharach and David.

The show and Warwick's aural autobiography ended with 1986's That's What Friends Are For. The last 22 years? They never happened. Bonkers but oddly inspired.