Jackie Leven – a cult artist Jackie Leven, Andy White and Michael Weston King, Purcell Room, South Bank Centre, London

Review of an evening of songs with Leven, Andy White and Michael Weston King at the Purcell Room. Martin pans King (“borderline pomposity”) and finds White harmless; Leven, by contrast, is a huge talent. He summarises the biography, praises Defending Ancient Springs as perhaps his best album and describes Leven on stage “like a fisherman at rest”: shorts, a cocktail of gin, vodka and ginger wine, coarse anecdotes about Patsy Kensit, Salman Rushdie and Will Oldham, plus “Chevin”, “Single Father” and, to finish, Van Morrison's “Madame George”. Conclusion: a cult artist who must be recognised as a “living treasure”.