Theatre - Dizzy Gillespie's bid for the US presidency gets jazzed up. By Michael Portillo Vote Dizzy! An evening with His Royal Hipness Lord Buckley Soho Theatre, London W1

''Four big hits and seven licks ago,/our before-daddies swung forth upon this sweet groovy land/a jumpin', wailin', stompin', swingin' new nation,/hip to the cool sweet groove of liberty/and solid sent upon the Ace lick dat all cats and kiddies,/red, white, or blue, is created level in front."

Thus begins Lincoln's Gettysburg Address as reinterpreted by Lord Buckley, alias Richard Myrle Buckley. He had nothing whatsoever to do with the British aristocracy, having been born to a poor family in the tiny Sierra town of Tuolumne, in gold-mining country in California. What he lacked in birth, he made up for in style, adopting a regal air and living out his invented persona day and night, on and off stage. This former lumberjack-turned-English-toff might seem an unlikely candidate to transmute into a "Hip Messiah", adopting the street language of black America. And unlike that other white master of black patois, Ali G, he did not adopt the clothing, the bling or the movements of the black street. Standing 6ft 6ins tall, he would address his audience in white tie, or sometimes a pith helmet, twiddling his long waxed moustache.

His finest achievement, for which he is fondly remembered, was the creation of "Hip Semantic" translations of Bible stories, plays by Willie the Shake (from Stratford) and other familiar passages of poetry and prose. Vote Dizzy! provides an opportunity to hear some of the hilarious pieces that have made him a cult figure - the man Bob Dylan described as "the fuel to my success", and whom Frank Sinatra called "the most sensational comic of our time".

We must thank Jake Broder (whose most recent appearance in the West End was in a supporting role in When Harry Met Sally) for this entertaining 75-minute cabaret. He brings to life not only Abe's famous battlefield address, but also Lord Buckley's versions of Jonah and the Whale, Scrooge and the "Nazz".

If you are in doubt about that last one, some of the opening lines should help. "I'm gonna put a cat on you/was the coolest, grooviest, sweetest, wailinest,/ strongest, swinginest cat that ever stomped on this jumpin' green sphere./ And they call this hyar cat . . . the Nazz." Yes, you guessed it: Jesus Christ.

Broder is a pretty cool daddy-o himself. He seems genuinely "pleased, flipped and grooved" to be with his audience. He tells "the hippest stories in storydom" with an infectious smile. Not only can he croon into the big chrome-headed 1950s microphone with the best of them, but also, when he sits down at the piano, he swings a mean finger over the ivories and tickles up some hip jazz lick. That's how I would put it, anyway.

One of Buckley's great talents was the ability to wing it, and Broder is a worthy disciple. On the night I saw the show, a woman in the audience, possibly excessively refreshed, became involved in a vociferous row with a female theatre manager. Broder commented amiably that he hoped the chicks would soon have concluded their hassle, and soothingly urged the woman to keep it tight. Good advice. After all, did not our Lord say to his disciples when they became frightened by the storm on the Sea of Galilee: "I told you to stay cool, didn't I, babies"?

The evening's title refers to the bid made by the jazz trumpeter Dizzy Gillespie to become president of the United States in 1964. He ran on a platform of pulling out of Vietnam, desegregation and a national lottery. He promised to rename the presidential mansion "the Blues House" and to appoint Miles Davis as director of the CIA. Despite that attractive set of campaign promises, he disappointingly trailed far behind Barry Goldwater, who in turn was buried by a Lyndon B Johnson landslide.

Other material for the evening draws on Lenny Bruce, that angry comedian and scourge of segregation, the man who affronted every taboo and whose kami-kaze stage routines earned him a prosecution for obscenity, also in 1964.

A jazz trio keeps Dizzy in our minds throughout the evening (along with the bebop jazz pianist Thelonious Monk), and Broder's co-writer, David Tughan, also contributes on synthesiser and saxophone. There are two sub-plots: one concerns the election campaign, the other Lord Buckley's arrest in 1943 for possessing marijuana (from which Ed Sullivan rescued him) and the revocation of Buckley's cabaret card by New York City police in 1960. Neither strand works well dramatically, but that did not detract from my enjoyment of His Lordship's monologues. My appetite has been whetted and I just wish we could also have heard the splendidly titled "The Bad-Rapping of the Marquis de Sade - King of the Bad Cats".

This charming cabaret (or late-night rally, as the authors call it) will surely create many new cultists for His Royal Hipness, whose material seems fresh even though he has been "under a rug" for four decades now. Many who buy tickets will already be his devotees, but as Buckley said (about Jesus Christ), "You dug him before. Redig him now."

Booking on 020 7478 0100 until 6 November

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