Readers old enough to have endured the golden age of disaster movies may recall that Maureen McGovern had a No 1 hit with The Morning After, from The Poseidon Adventure and sang the Oscar-winning theme to The Towering Inferno. She also played the guitar-toting nun in that magnificent parody Airplane! before becoming a sleek cabaret performer who was sometimes a little too eager to display her multi-octave talents.

After a long absence, she has returned to London with a show — part of the American Songbook season — in which she courts listeners with controlled displays of emotion rather than grandstanding high notes. It is a feast for baby-boomers, McGovern celebrating the era of Simon & Garfunkel, Lennon & McCartney and Joni Mitchell. Now approaching her 60th birthday, the singer has aged gracefully. Her voice is warmer and darker, and she weaves songs into a gently self-mocking study of her generation’s hopes and dreams.

Her musical director Jeff Harris supplies subtle accompaniment. McGovern’s enunciation is so pure that you sometimes catch phrases that are indistinct on the original recordings. She is at her most vulnerable on Carole King’s Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?, while her anguished treatment of Jimmy Webb’s The Moon’s a Harsh Mistress is a tour de force. John Lennon’s Imagine was too obvious and sentimental a choice, but McGovern had great fun revisiting her Catholic schooling with the help of Tom Lehrer’s Vatican Rag.

In Mark Nadler’s world, by contrast, the RKO musical still rules and George Gershwin is the only songwriter in town. His exuberant show at Bellamy’s (which has now launched a cabaret programme of its own) offers a winning assortment of pianistic high jinks — superbly executed historical titbits and unabashed romance. Nadler’s manic showmanship (he even includes a bout of tap-dancing) makes Michael Feinstein seem positively reticent. I am pretty sure it was the first time I had ever seen a performer woo a member of the audience by picking her up and carrying her to the piano stool. Leave your stiff upper-lip at the door.

Maureen McGovern to May 30 (08456 027 017); Mark Nadler to Sat (0871 594 3123)

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