Almond’s Cabaret Cocktail With a Twist of Mae West

Remember “Liza with a Z”? How about “Marc with a C”--as in Marc Almond, would-be heir apparent to Judy Garland, Jacques Brel and Frank Sinatra?

Opening a two-night stand at the Pantages on Friday, the fey British popster unveiled a highly theatrical show, revealing his weaknesses for German cabaret-style balladry and old-style show-biz oversinging while not forgetting the equally mannered modern techno-pop on which he made his name.

Though Almond ignored his Soft Cell material, which tended toward a kinkier side than his more sophisticated solo material, he’s hardly given up pandering. “How good it must be in your . . . bed,” he drawled in one song, with a spin on the phrase that was less Liza than Mae West--or Dr. Frank N. Furter.

Yet Almond can lay off the camp long enough to suggest hedonism-as-transcendence, a la (Depeche) Mode. A well-staged transition had him reciting the closing words of “The Sensualist”--”ecstasy, ecstasy, ecstasy”--and slumping back into a throne as lights began to spin round, suggesting the real ecstasy of a dizzy head. Then the band launched into “Tears Run Rings”-- sumptuous pop complete with “sighing angels.”

Almond headlines the Celebrity Theater in Anaheim tonight.