When stars get older and twinkle less brightly they retire to the one-person show. And to a life laid out in anecdotes. There is something ineffably sad about that, even if the anecdotes are as good as the one Elaine Stritch tells about Ethel Merman breaking off mid-song to forcibly eject a drunk who is ruining her big number, then returning to the stage and picking up on the same note as if there had been no interruption. Yes, the show must go on. And on and on.
Stritch has had a long showbiz life, and, at almost three hours, this is a very long evening. Stritch's offering may have input from John Lahr, but the format is much as you would expect from a show that combines concert with autobiography, and chat show revelations with a bit of hoofing. At some point in these evenings, the star almost always sings My Way or Sondheim's I'm Still Here. Stritch opts for the latter and delivers it magnificently in her distinctive voice.
But it is not what she can do that we are applauding, but the fact that after more than 50 years in "the biz" she is still upright - which is well-nigh miraculous, given that for a lot of it she was pickled in alcohol. It is a wonder she can remember anything at all. "For a lot of my life I wasn't really there," she says wistfully.
There is something almost maudlin about an evening that is so full of regrets for the parts she lost (she blew the audition for the sitcom Golden Girls), the relationships never fulfilled (she threw over her fiance for Rock Hudson), the children never born and the loneliness of her present life. She is both survivor and victim and therefore ripe for showbiz canonisation. You either buy into the conventions or you don't. And if you don't, this is just another well-preserved septuagenarian actress in black tights and a shirt who appears to have left the house without remembering to put on her skirt.
· Until November 16. Box office: 020-7369 1722.
