THERE were no health warnings on the tickets and it was a dangerous oversight.

Choosing my words carefully, the audience that gathered to see Petula Clark were predominantly of more mature years and should have been forewarned that what they were about to see and hear carried a serious risk of heart palpitations and soaring blood pressures.

But the risk was well worth taking. What they saw and heard was a 72-year-old Super Gran who, after more than six decades, a thousand or more records and sales in excess of 68 million, had lost none of that star quality sadly absent from so many of today's one-hit wonders.

After appearances not so long ago at the Hollywood Bowl and Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas, why the Forum Theatre, Malvern, beats me, but as it's nine miles from home and within bus pass reach, I'm so glad she dropped in before jetting off to the States and a musical date with Andy Williams.

She's been singing for 60 years or more and yet she still got the hair to stand up on the toupees in the stalls and caused a few NHS hearing aids to overload with Downtown, I know a Place, Sailor, I Couldn't Live without your Love, The Other Man's Grass and Don't Sleep in the Subway. All were delivered with a combination of clarity and power my old Dansette never matched, even at full volume.

Highlights for me were Pet's closing first half number from Blood Brothers, Tell me it's not True and Norma Desmond hit from her most recent stage role in the West End, Sunset Boulevard.

Besides sounding good, from a dozen rows back she still looked pretty good too.

All in all, the evening put Grandmas in a new light, and I'm off to enrol at the nearest Darby and Joan Club! JJ