Let's hear it for Texan impresario (I kid you not) A. Keith Turnipseed, architect of The American Songbook in London, a five-week season of Broadway classics performed, as singer-presenter Jeff Harnar underlined, by genu-wine Americans.

Julie Wilson, a very tough act to follow for showbiz eminence and durability, opened the batting. Her West End debut, Harnar said, came with Kiss Me Kate back in 1951, followed by South Pacific in 1956.

We were still doing the math as Julie stepped up in a long halter-neck gown, with lace gloves on her hands and a white gardenia in her swept-back hair. She looked frail but when Christopher Denny struck up at the piano, her face came alive and her dark eyes blazed.

Interpreting Gershwin, Porter, Mercer, Rodgers & Hart and Kurt Weill, Julie radiated wistfulness on Blue Moon, languor on Laziest Gal in Town, warm affection on Just My Bill, cold fury on Surabaya Johnny and real menace on Mack the Knife.

Though more speaking than singing and forgetting the odd line, her dramatisation was so vivid nobody minded. Her self-deprecating humour - "Mama said: 'Don't you ever get tired of showing off?' and I said 'Nope'" - and her ability to inhabit a song completely was something every London wannabe diva should study.

• Until Sunday. Further artists until 15 March. Information: 020 7287 2875.