Choosing the best songs of the past millennium is some task. There must be something by Abba. A Cole Porter classic. A Kinks tune, perhaps. But how about Ja Nuls Hom Pris, penned by Richard the Lionheart? Or Henry Purcell’s operatic aria When I Am Laid In Earth? Or even the Renaissance toe-tapper So Ben Mi Ca Bon Tempo, sung in colloquial Italian? Three minute wonders, all.

“We’re leaving no genre unturned,” said folk-rock hero Richard Thompson, putting down the hurdy gurdy he’d been wielding and strapping on his acoustic guitar.

And off we went on a journey from ballad to madrigal, sea shanty to folk anthem, musical hall to Gilbert and Sullivan. The latter’s When A Man Goes to Woo A Fair Maid proved an ideal vehicle for Thompson’s nuanced baritone. The guitar god’s voice, it turns out, is nearly as remarkable as his finger picking.

Thompson has been doing this show on and off since 2004, but this one — part of a UK tour back at the Barbican on February 3 — still came with a few surprises. A respectful rendition of the ballad False Knight On The Road was better than Steeleye Span’s version, just as Thompson had promised. “We’re shameless up here,” he joked, flanked by musicians and vocalists Deborah Dobkin and Judith Owen, who sang a handful of numbers to varying effect.

Thematic images flashed up on a giant video screen as Thompson turned each composition into music for guitar, keyboards and percussion and made them his own.

The 20th century half of the show featured a subtle, textured cover of Abba’s Money Money Money and a fabulous take on Nelly Furtado’s Maneater that segued hilariously to early church music and verses sung in Latin.

Hooray, rejoiced the video screen at the end.