Arthur Smith sings Leonard Cohen (Vol 2), Soho Theatre

It's been fourteen years since Arthur Smith - alternative comedy stalwart and self-proclaimed Night Mayor of Balham ('I don’t do days') - took to the mic to croon the soulful tunes of Leonard Cohen. The show, then performed in tandem with the musical comedian Ronnie Golden, was recorded for BBC Radio 4 and toured the Edinburgh Fringe, the West End, and the Just for Laughs comedy festival in Montreal to a plethora of broadsheet rave reviews. Now he's back, reloaded, at the Soho Theatre Downstairs joint, for a resurrected run.

Smith’s comedic reputation rests on the gruffness of his act. He famously turned down a Perrier Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005, saying: ‘they wanted to tell me I was old and cool; well, I know that already, and anyway,my ego is bloated enough’.  Currently he riffs on this self-cultivated image as a regular in the BBC2 comedy series Grumpy Old Men.

But there’s a searing sense of tenderness in this show,and fans of Smith will get to see a side of him up close that, you sense, has only very rarely lain itself bare to scrutiny in this way. Cohen’s music courses into every nook and corner of Smith’s musings on comedy and death –with a particular poignancy when his thoughts turn to the dementia that afflicts his now care-home-bound mother. 

These are by no means the most vocally adept renditions of Cohen’s greatest hits that you might have heard, but for the sheer emotional punch that they pack, they're in a league of their own.