Singing is not what Hugh Jackman does best. Sometimes his voice clatters a bit, sometimes she snarls. Once, when he recites a hit from "Les Misérables", she slips into a meaningless roar. And in the very last song, in which the Hollywood star assured the well over 10,000 spectators in the Hamburg Barcleycard Arena with ballad-like Schmalz, how hard it is to say "Goodbye", his voice creeps so horribly wrong and wrong that one of those ear-pained Katerjammer just a little bit more softened anyway the already too slow cheese melted heart.

Because of course it is a triumph that the entertainer Jackman celebrates on Monday evening at the first of his four German appearances. "Hugh Jackman, The Man, The Music, The Show." is the title of the world tour, which now leads the most famous Australian since Crocodile Dundee to Europe. And indeed: The main attraction of this spectacle of musical evergreens and a few own hits, heated dance performances and wild audience hugs is the man Hugh Jackman. He is 50 years old, with hair neatly parted on the left, a lugged microphone on his cheek, and his ears crammed with plastic and electronics. He radiates a stunning smile. The two-and-a-half-hour, pause-break program he invites audiences is designed to journey into Hugh Jackman's world.

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Hugh Jackman: Charming clown face

The hero in the spotlight tells of his childhood in Australia, in which he played rugby and did not dare to dance until late because his older brother mocked him as a sissy. He tells of his love for the Australian musical genius Peter Allen, whom he played on stage and on screen in the play "The Boy From Oz". He remembers performing at New York's Carnegie Hall, where his father from Sydney flew in and got dressed in a tuxedo, even though everyone else in the audience was wearing casual clothes.

And he shows himself for a few dance steps in the pose of the scissor-handed mutant Wolverine, in the role that has probably made him known to the vast majority of people through the series of "X-Men" films. Of course, Jackman also sings all sorts of songs from the movie "The Greatest Showman" from 2017, in which he played the circus entrepreneur PT Barnum. With the accompanying album "The Greatest Show" he and his co-singers managed a great, for many surprising success in the music market.

"Dancing is welding," is a famous sentence by Fred Astaire, for Hugh Jackman he seems to apply only conditionally. Sometimes he dances through the arena in tuxedos with a cummerbund and an open white shirt, sometimes he grabs the catwalk in a glittering sequin suit, sometimes he dances across the broadside stage in one of his suitcases, apparently made by Tom Ford that he has a lot of effort to look at. Only after a tapdance-number Jackman allows himself to visibly sweat.

The gala that presents Jackman is more expensive than most pop concerts, the cards cost between 80 and 140 euros, but it saves practically nothing. A nearly twenty-headed orchestra, eight dancers and two guest singers are in action; and because Jackman also reports a life-changing encounter with Aboriginal culture, a few Aboriginal artists perform a song from their ancestral treasure. Only the 50-member girl choir, which apparently was recently used in Jackman's appearance in Glasgow, is not in Hamburg.

The entertainer Jackman masterfully masters the interplay of ostensible modesty and comic insolence, which is the charm of every great stage artist. He waves a white umbrella to "Singin 'In The Rain", stuttering on the piano, stammering that he is ashamed of any professional for his miserable bauble. And when he finally talks about the movie "The Greatest Showman", he sighs that it was nine years of hard work until the work was finally filmed.

Jackman is a gorgeous host. When he steps into the limelight again in a new gear, one thinks that this hero type could easily be planted as a figurehead on every ship's bow or as a cowboy in a rodeo arena. He would be a magnificent cast as a croupier in the casino or as an officer and gentleman in bloody battles. But Jackman has chosen the role of Showman. Its most important rule has Frank Sinatra formulated: "Dear to wear the foolish clown face." So let's put it this way: Right now, Hugh Jackman has the most charming clown face around.