Alan Cumming has a tattoo on his arm saying: “Only connect”. A famous quote from E. M. Forster’s 1910 novel Howards End, expressing Margaret’s longing for people to reach out and truly communicate with each other, it has become his mantra as a performer. In his cabaret show Alan Cumming Sings Sappy Songs, he does just that – connecting with the audience through a wide-ranging set of stories, some of them deeply revealing and others hilariously naughty, along with a wildly eclectic mix of songs that he makes his own.

^{Alan Cumming. Photograph: supplied}

Radiating oodles of charm, with a twinkle in the eye that lights up the stage, Cumming is a natural showman.  Marrying a flirty-dirty sense of humour, a camp sensibility, an unashamed sentimentality and a raw emotional honesty, he has you laughing one minute and wiping a tear away the next – the perfect combo for a seductively entertaining cabaret show.

By the end of the evening we feel that he’s shared enough of himself to have given us an insight into what makes him tick, and a taste of what it would be like to be a...