Gig review: Lulu at The Grand Theatre and Opera House - A wonderful finale to a legendary career

“Who here likes the Eurovision Song Contest?” Lulu Kennedy-Cairns - mononymously known, of course, by just her first and stage name - asks with a wink-wink nudge of a grin. With a smattering of cheers in response, she drags her sunglasses down the bridge of her nose and peers over the rims.

“Four of you, that’s good. I wouldn’t have chosen this one.”

The song in question - Boom Bang-a-Bang, launched a year after Cliff Richard had fallen short Congratulations - gave the singer one of her biggest hits, but by her own gleeful admission, it is far from an immediate favourite.

Nevertheless, its throwaway pop simplicity has endured; save for a brief period it was blacklisted by the BBC during the Gulf War, it has been a hallmark for the Glasgow singer amid a career full of fascinating left-turns and reinventions that receive due and full tribute across this two-act show at The Grand Theatre and Opera House.

Seventy-six years young, and still in possession of that idiosyncratically smoky rasp, this is the last tour of the star’s career; Lulu is determined to go out on her own terms as a cultural icon of the postwar era - from sixties television star to nineties dancefloor revivalist, it has been quite the career.

Arranged with a vague chronological bent, and aided by a series of virtual duets where the star sings in sync with some of her famous showbiz friends, it is an evening of firm good cheer.

There are corkers and cameos throughout - First of May, performed with late husband Maurice Gibb cast onto the screen behind her, is a beautifully affecting moment, while an appearance by the pre-millenium Smash Hits flash Kavana for I Can Make You Feel Good feels gratuitous, but is still nevertheless good fun.

The obvious beats are there - Shout is aired twice, and The Man With the Golden Gun is framed against a montage of all six James Bond actors - while Relight My Fire arrives with all the glitz to expect.

But it is the unexpected that brings a tear to the eye, with a sensational closing cover of Jackson Browne’s farewell ballad The Load-Out, segued into Stay. “My heart is full,” she says with a bow. “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

It is a wonderfully idiosyncratic finale; one that keeps firmly in line with a wonderfully idiosyncratic star.