CABARET chanteuse Dillie Keane, the founder-member of Fascinating Aida who has been described as a national treasure by The Stage, is returning to Malvern with her latest one-woman show.

Back With You is Dillie's third such show, the first two - Single Again and the award-nominated Citizen Keane - having played to packed houses around the country.

Back With You is "wry, funny, despairing, poignant and curiously hopeful featuring grown-up songs of love and ageing", written by Dillie and her long-time colleague Adele Anderson.

Described as "two of the best songwriters in Britain today" by The Times, they have been compared to Coward, Tom Lehrer, and Flanders and Swann.

Speaking from her London home, Dillie told the Malvern Gazette & Ledbury Reporter how much she was looking forward to returning to the town.

"I know this is going to sound really cheesy but I absolutely love it," she said. "It's a beautiful place, the theatre is lovely and well-run and the audiences are delightful, very theatrically literate."

Her latest show sees Dillie on stage for two hours. So does performing solo leave her more exposed than with Fascinating Aida?

"Absolutely. The focus is all on you and you cannot be tired," she said. "I have got to be at the peak of my abilities, such as they are,"

The new show, said Dillie, is a return to songs, which is what she loves best to perform.

"It's much more personal and reflective this time," she said. "Adele and I are drawing on our own experiences, although I do not want to get too autobiographical; no-one wants to hear all about my life. In any case, when you start to make the words rhyme and fit them into scansion and so on, you start to lose the autobiographical element."

Dillie recently took her act to Berlin, which many would say was the home of cabaret, and was overwhelmed by the response. In fact, so moved was she that she has started learning German.

She said: "Again, it sounds corny, but it did feel as though I was coming home. They 'got' me immediately over there."

Back With You is at Malvern Theatres on Saturday, March 10, at 7.30pm.

Tickets (£16 and £14) are available from the box office on 01684 892277.