Just Jim Dale (2014)

Whether he’s tripping over an imaginary curtain or reimagining a pas de deux ballet routine he performed as a boy sans partner, Jim Dale proves to be remarkably spry for 78. In Just Jim Dale, a glorified cabaret act playing through Aug. 10 at Roundabout’s Off Broadway Laura Pels Theatre, the British-born actor recounts his noteworthy career in song, anecdote, and groan-inducing music-hall joke. (Mark York accompanies him on piano.) Dale has a rich life to draw upon. As a teenager, he left a job at a shoe factory (”I put down my knife, picked up my confidence, and I walked out”) and joined the music-hall circuit as a young performer, doing 14 shows per week, 50 weeks per year. He had a brief stint as a teen pop idol (though he might have spared us a full rendition of his bizarrely titled self-penned hit, ”Dick-a-Dum-Dum (King’s Road)”) and cowrote the Oscar-nominated theme to the 1966 film Georgy Girl. Before long, he embarked on a career in theater that would earn him a Tony Award for the 1980 musical Barnum.