More than 15 years have passed since Leonard Cohen last graced a British stage, but the 73-year-old poet-turned-crooner was on suave form at the start of a four-night stint at the Manchester International Festival on Tuesday night. Dressed in the full Guys and Dolls outfit of grey fedora and outsized double-breasted suit, he looked frail, but performed for more than two hours with wit, humility and twinkle-eyed charm.

Exuding all the unruffled poise of the maitre d’ at the world’s most understated kosher restaurant, Cohen made no mention of the dramatic financial crisis that necessitated this unexpected return to live performance. In 2006, he won a civil lawsuit against his former manager and ex-lover Kelley Lynch after millions of dollars went missing from his retirement fund, leaving him virtually penniless. Despite his court victory Cohen is unlikely to recover the money, which helps to explain the eye-watering ticket prices for this tour at least.

Cohen is sometimes called the Canadian Bob Dylan, and both mixed in the same bohemian-aristo circles in 1960s New York. But it was not until the 1980s, after turning 50, that Cohen began his second-act transition from florid acoustic troubadour to caustically funny, bass-baritone cabaret crooner.

The majority of this set drew on these last two decades, with Cohen teasing bleak ironies from apocalyptic chansons including I’m Your Man, Everybody Knows and The Future. Backed by six musicians and three backing singers, the settings were mostly elegant fusions of jazz, gospel and cabaret with vaguely Eastern European textures supplied by exotic instruments such as the bandurria and archilaud. Some songs were liturgical incantations, others tender reflections on lost love and faded lust.

Cohen has famously been a depressive for much of his career, but he insists that the dark clouds have lifted. He certainly leavened this performance with immense humour . Laughing in the face of cosmic absurdity, Leonard Cohen is the Samuel Beckett of pop.

Tour: Manchester Opera House to tomorrow; Glastonbury Festival, June 29; Edinburgh Castle, July 16; London O2 Arena, July 17.

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