Live at the Marquee: Imelda May

TO her credit, Imelda May has achieved the improbable, attaining mainstream success as a rockabilly artiste.

Not since The Stray Cats, Shakin’ Stevens et al in the ‘80s has anyone engaged with the genre to such spectacular effect.

It undoubtedly helps that May’s fashion sense has struck a chord with a new generation of Fifties-fixated young ladies. But it’s not as if the Marquee, thronged as it is, is simply full of Betty Page wannabes or potential Suicide Girls; the singer’s audience is far broader than that. It is also the case that she possesses that elusive wow factor that would surely have propelled her to the top in any genre she chose.