In The Performance we are invited to deduce that there is more (in a way, less) to Bassey than meets the eye: away from the spotlight, she's just a woman. This is familiar diva territory: you behave like a star, then you become a star, then you set out to prove that you're not starry. It's even more complicated with The Performance, because this collection is penned by a variety of other artists.

Under the stewardship of David Arnold, here are songs by Richard Hawley, KT Tunstall, Rufus Wainwright and Gary Barlow. For the most part, it's surprisingly coherent. One of the best tracks is the Manic Street Preachers-penned The Girl From Tiger Bay, which manages to reference Situationism, Bassey's 1997 Propellerheads collaboration History Repeating, and the singer's Cardiff upbringing in its first 20 seconds: "There's a crack in every pavement, underneath it is the beach/ It's been a long time longing as history repeats".

Bassey seems to make a comeback every few years, and her most recent one was in 2007 with her undignified cover of Pink's Get the Party Started. This, however, is an album that matches Bassey's persona with some artistic endeavour. She'll presumably go on for years but, if this were to be Bassey's last album, it would be an apt finale. Its closer, The Performance of My Life, even drops hints to future divas. "A brave face, stiff upper lip will do the trick/ The mask is flung, the face is mine, it seems fine…"