THIS is a performance to cherish, with Eddi Reader and an intimate band loving every minute of their time on stage and an audience swept along by the sheer, joyful enthusiasm of the spectacle.

In what is more of a revue than a concert, Reader gives over large parts of the evening to musical reminiscences of her life and times, in particular to affectionate memories of Glasgow — where her childhood was brightened by a host of singing relatives — and London, where she lived in a squat before finding fame with Fairground Attraction.

Although the set is preordained, everything else seems wonderfully natural and impromptu as Reader sails off on flights of fancy while her band of friends and family — including husband John Douglas and songwriter Boo Hewerdine, both on guitar — lovingly try to keep her on the straight and narrow.  

Most affecting, and wonderfully humorous, are her musical impressions of aunts, grannies and other matriarchs. They culminate in a moving recreation of her mother, fag in one hand, drink in the other, faux-reluctantly singing Moon River at the end of a drunken house party.

There are plenty of new songs among the nostalgia, including Wonderful, Maiden’s Lament, Meg o’the Glen, Starlight, Pangur Ban and Maid of the Loch, all from recent album Cavalier.

But otherwise there are looks back to Fairground Attraction, with a Presleyised version of Perfect in tribute to her Elvis-fan father and a Mexican flavoured Find My Love.

And there are some of her most popular solo material, including Kiteflyers Hill, Dragonflies and Patience of Angels, although she sits out the latter to give the floor, most welcomely, to Hewerdine, the man who wrote it.

Reader has acting ability, a comic’s instinct and a great stage presence to add to her mesmerising voice. Now she also seems to be fully at ease with herself as well as her place in the world.

Maturity most definitely suits her.