WHEN his tenth studio album Standards was released last year, it felt a little like Seal was returning from the wilderness.

It had been a long time since his glory days, with his singles Crazy, Killer and Kiss From A Rose all released from the early to mid Nineties, catapulting his career.

And yet his new album sees the singer taking a completely different direction as he emulates Frank Sinatra through jazz classics such as Luck be a Lady, My Funny Valentine and It Was a Very Good Year.

The audience on Saturday night were first treated to the latter, with a big band bringing the melodies while Seal’s powerful voice rang out around the theatre.

It was a transformation performed so smoothly that even the most hardcore Seal fans were impressed by the star, who danced his way around the stage in a nod to the swing icon.

A performance of Irma Thomas’ Anyone Who Knows What Love Is was sung beautifully, a timely addition to the album with its inclusion in Netflix dystopian programme Black Mirror, marking the end of the first half of the show. And that’s when things started to heat up a little.

As the big band left the stage, Seal took to the microphone with an acoustic guitar, playing a pared back rendition of his most famous single Kiss From A Rose.

But it was his debut track Killer, which shot the singer to fame in 1989 with acid house producer Adamski, which finally got the crowd on to their feet.

A true performer at heart, Seal thought nothing of making his way to dance among the audience, standing in the stalls while the audience revelled in his cool, his vocals flawless and unfaltering despite the multitude of women clawing at him.

An encore brought the singer’s first track of the Nineties, Crazy, “to finish things how they begun” – bringing an end to a fantastic evening.