“This isn’t like one of those other variety shows, where there’s some faceless producer in the background, picking the acts,” says Ali McGregor at the start of her show. “These are all favourites of mine.”

McGregor, an opera singer by training, has picked exceptionally well for the variety show’s return to the snug confines of the Spiegeltent, as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

NSW stand-up comedian Sarah Kendall is an orthodox, if likeable, opening to a line-up that eschews safe choices in favour of hidden, odd delights.

There’s a Circus Oz performer who twirls countless hula hoops while puffing on a cigarette and a man with tape over his mouth who mimes songs with oven gloves and recreates the pottery scene from Ghost with a bemused member of the audience.

The final act is Marcel Lucont, a walking French stereotype, who performs an astonishing song littered with faultlessly spoken, and remembered, chemical compounds.

In-between this mayhem, McGregor generously lends her operatic skills to pop culture, belting out superb takes on Beyoncé and Radiohead songs, as well as a Charleston version of controversial Robin Thicke/Pharrell Williams track Blurred Lines.

McGregor is an engaging, amusing host, holding court as a chanteuse of a bygone age, delicately reclining on a chaise longue next to her band as her handpicked acts justify the faith she has put in them.

There are moments of musical pathos, as well as ebullience, in the show but while the acts are varied in tone and genre – from riotous burlesque to acoustic guitar strumming – the pace is brisk and never jarring.

The atmospheric Spiegeltent, a circular den that combines big top with jazz basement, adds to the fun, even if it has been plonked, spaceship-like, into the unforgiving concrete of Federation Square. A return to its previous spot, next to the National Gallery of Victoria, would be welcome next year.

This exceptionally minor quibble aside, McGregor’s show is a warm, personable experience. Well recommended.