@ Edinburgh Playhouse on Tue 7 Jun 2016

What can it be like to step onto a stage in some city on the northern edge of Europe where you’ve never been before and to receive foot-stamping applause like this? Bernadette Peters may not be a household name but to aficionados of the musical she is a luminous star. She’s a Broadway regular and been in movies, most memorably the film version of Dennis Potter’s Pennies from Heaven. The house is full, the lights go down. The 11-piece band warms up and Ms Peters appears. She is dressed in a lavender gown of skin and beads and opens with Let Me Entertain You, the one from Gypsy, not Robbie Williams. And, like the song says, the audience is in for a real good time.

The show has only three UK dates: London, Manchester and Edinburgh and, she says, her pal Alan Cumming has told her all the things she must do when in town. Most recently Peters has performed on Broadway (she has three Tony Awards to her name) in revivals of Follies and A Little Night Music. She is one of the foremost interpreters of Stephen Sondheim. Tonight she gives the audience a good round-robin of songs – excellently arranged by Marvin Laird and expertly chosen with sophisticated ears in mind.

Peters has a little-girl speaking voice, but the most affecting tremolo when she sings. There’s a heart-rending rendition of Sondheim’s No One is Alone followed by the full-on, male-chorus showstopper There’s Nothing Like a Dame from South Pacific. This really shouldn’t work for a female singer but it’s done with such brio it’s a triumph.

Peters puts her own stamp on everything she sings from the old standard Fever to Mr Snow from Carousel. When, in the song It Might as Well Be Spring from State Fair, she sings ‘I feel gay in a melancholy way’ it’s her mantra. But the best is yet to come. Sondheim’s Losing My Mind reveals to the audience that they are in the presence of something very special. It’s a wonderful and affecting piece of stagecraft.

The standard Send in the Clowns was written for Glynis Johns who made the song her very own. For many Sondheim fans no one can better it. Newsflash: Peters can! To lighten the mood there is a startling version of When You Wish Upon a Star (yes, the Disney one) and it’s as if Tinkerbell has come back to life. Peters holds the audience spellbound in her hand and the finale is her own composition Kramer’s Song – a lullaby for her dog. If this sounds cheddary and maudlin it’s not. But it’s understandable that people who don’t have an animal companion just won’t get it. For those who do, there’s Kleenex – you’ll need three.