Frances Rufelle @ The Ghillie Dhu

Best known for her role in Les Miserables, Frances Rufelle promises to reveal a few of her more obscure influences in this big band revue. Rufelle is a consumate professional, boasts a strong voice and striking presence: her selections ranging from the too familiar - Alabama Song has been done too often - to the obscure and new.

Rufelle is undoubtedly a wonderful singer, and her band are the tightest on the Fringe. She is not, however, a cabaret performer. Her connection to the audience is very limited, even if she does wander about the Ghillie Dhu, and a brief attempt to engage one audience member is rude rather than charming. When the band breaks into Smells Like Teenage Spirit, there is a horrible smell of decay: a lounge act trying to capture the energy of a musical moment that has, in any case, long since lost its meaning.

Cabaret is about irony, diffidence, intimacy: musical theatre is about show-stopping spectaculars. Rufelle hits home on the more theatrical numbers, when she is relieved of the responsibility of intimacy and can let rip with her award-winning pipes. It's obvious that Rufelle is a talented singer, each song is perfectly arranged and may well mean something to her on a personal level. She just doesn't communicate that, and belts them out like she's up for another Broadway show.

In September, Rufelle is starting a new show: based on the music of Kurt Weill, she plays a cabaret singer finding her way through a love affair with a composer. That will suit her talents far better, as she inhabits songs with a theatrical flair. Under The Dress is a good selection of numbers, varied in mood, sometimes witty, even approaching sensual. It is, however, frustrating to feel that the entire evening is not so much a sincere tribute to music that inspired Rufelle but a spot of bandwagon jumping. For anyone who wants to see good songs, performed with aplomb, arranged effectively and given a virtuosic work out, this show is perfect. For those who love the angular interpretation, the intimate or uncomfortable, it is disappointing.