Brighton Fringe offers so much choice, and one is never quite sure what to expect. A flyer intrigues and a chance is taken.

For this show that chance is well worth taking – it is simply brilliant.

Andrew Farr, billed as a 53 year-old bloke weighing 82 kilos, portrays a singing legend who died at 47 weighing just 36 kilos.

In the first half of the show he is dressed in a blue suit, white shirt and red tie – The Kit as Piaf called it, the Tricolour colours that she dressed all her lovers in.

Farr relates her life story from traumatic childhood, through stardom to her illnesses (where she often had to leave the stage for blood transfusions or to take morphine) and to death.

He does not shy from revealing details of her rapacious love life.

Among these anecdotes, which are accompanied by photos projected on a back screen, he tells of his obsession with Piaf from the age of seven when he first heard on Desert Island Discs and how later he sang her songs in a seedy cafe in Paris for eight months.

His narration is interspersed with his powerful singing. After the interval Farr surpasses himself as he takes to the stage dressed as Piaf – black dress, untidy wig and make-up including those pencilled eyebrows.

From then on he is Piaf performing her last televised concert in Nimegue, Holland. The frail, arthritic, stooping figure is realised perfectly complete with trademark stance and gestures.

While there is fragility in the body there is strength in her voice as she thunders out Piaf’s classic numbers – Milord, L’Accordeoniste, La Foule and, of course, climaxing with Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien and La Vie en Rose which has the audience joining in.