As he might well have put it himself, Julian Clary faced a stiff challenge. The decision to take on the role of the Emcee, recently vacated by James Dreyfus, in Rufus Norris's acclaimed revival of Cabaret could well have blown up in his face.

Although the camp stand-up's outrageous material and arch flamboyance might seem a natural fit for a musical set in decadent, sexually ambivalent 1930s Berlin, Clary is not an ensemble player and - as fans of Strictly Come Dancing well know - far from a natural hoofer.

As it is, Clary grabs the brass ring and makes the role his own. No mean feat for a weak-ish singer with two left feet.

The Emcee, more than most supporting roles, is haunted by the ghosts of those who have played it: not just Joel Grey, whose dazzlingly sinister Emcee in the original Broadway production was later immortalised on film.

Wayne Sleep also made an unexpectedly good fist of the part at the Strand back in 1986, and Alan Cumming's hyperactive, androgynous reading at the Donmar in 1993 carried him to Broadway and thence to Hollywood. More recently, James Dreyfus's, leery, baggy, tone-deaf Emcee was a downbeat revelation.

Despite his glittery lipstick, Clary also looks defiantly unglamorous, with his Himmler haircut and pasty skin. His aloofness suits the role perfectly, and his dramatic weaknesses prove to be strengths.

Cabaret has always been perverse in that the focal character, Sally Bowles, is a fragile mediocrity who has to be played by a sexy minx with a fabulous voice (currently soap star Amy Nuttall, revealing a fine pair of lungs).

Clary's hoarse tones and unenthusiastic shuffling underscore the tawdriness of the cabaret, the precariousness of Berlin's air of freedom and licence. He also, surprisingly, gives the sardonic, imperious Emcee a final, illuminating spark of humanity.

The audience on the night I saw it was heavy on schoolchildren, who tittered and whistled at the first-act finale when several cast members undress to embody the Aryan bodily ideal of the ascendant Nazis.

At the end of the second act, the actors disrobe again, this time to represent the naked victims of the gas chambers. Clary dropped his robe, turned his back, and put a consoling arm around their shoulders. You could have heard a pin drop.

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