Fewer thongs, more songs

Chilled and relaxed, Tom Jones seems to be liberated by his still relatively new status as a grand old man of gospel and blues, a legend whose voice has aged magnificently, with even more gravel to match his growing gravitas.

Gone is the avalanche of ladies’ undergarments, well mostly; a fan did run up and drop a gift on the stage, but Tom just said: “Leave it there, love, I’ll get to it in a minute.”

While he hasn’t discarded all of his old cabaret charm — there’s a bit of banter about Cork’s fine weather reminding him of Wales — but he has fairly seamlessly added a bank of more reflective, deeper material to his party fare.