To the Ally Pally for a post-Christmas treat, the great sporting drama that is the world darts championship, which will culminate on Tuesday with the crowning of the first global champion of 2008.

First, the main news: Phil Taylor, the 13-times world champion they call The Power, was beaten five sets to four by Wayne Mardle in the quarter-finals. Taylor, who struggled to win all three of his previous matches in the championship, took the first three sets but thereafter was a shadow of his former self. The two big beasts of the game, Taylor and Raymond van Barneveld, have departed long before schedule. Taylor appears at last to be in decline. Also through to today’s semi-finals are Kevin Shepherd, who beat Peter Manley five sets to four and John Part, who accounted for James Wade by the same score.

Next, the conundrum: is it sport, and is it worth attention?

The game’s theatrical conventions certainly invite those questions. Every player must have a nickname, preferably the bleeding obvious, such as Barney for van Barneveld and The Artist for Kevin Painter, his conqueror. “Best of order please. Game on!” is the beginning of the litany when the arrows must fly. After that, every score is announced in the prescribed music-hall manner, with the maximum 180 shouted as if fire has broken out.

The audience plays its part. At the end of each set, when a commercial break slots in, an addictive tune, Chase the Sun by Planet Funk, strikes up and 2,000 beer-fuelled people leap to their feet. The idea is to jig while holding aloft a sponsor’s sign scrawled freehand with some witty legend, hoping to appear fleetingly on television.

Meanwhile, the most celebrated individual in the game, with the possible exception of Taylor, is to be found in the commentary box, playing the role of court-jester and fool, purveying wisdom and high-flown rhetorical nonsense. Like the game he describes and adorns, Sid Waddell, the Geordie oracle of the oche, is showered with honour and ridicule. Some regard him as a genius. Others, like a letter-writer to the Radio Times some years ago, reckon that his “appalling commentary, with its excruciating clichés, degrades both the sport and the otherwise professional coverage”.

Waddell is a miner’s son, clever with an anarchistic streak, who won a scholarship to St John’s College, Cambridge, where he read history. Hence: “When Alexander of Macedonia was 33 he cried salt tears because there were no more worlds to conquer – Eric Bristow is only 27!”

The first paragraph of Waddell’s memoirs, Bellies and Bull-seyes, runs thus: “As a boy, growing up in Ashington in Northumberland, I was so highly strung that the approach of exams at grammar school threw me into a complete funk. Fear of not being top in all subjects meant I would often worry myself into a chronic asthma attack.”

Watching him in action in the cramped commentary box, it is clear he has not changed. It was privileged if uncomfortable access, which was granted with a warning: “Get ready for a white-knuckle ride.” It was just another match after 30 years commentating on the sport, to begin with for the BBC, now for Sky, but Waddell was twitchy, coughing and spluttering to clear his voice. As he went on air he shook hands with his fellow commentator, John Gwynne, and said: “Have a good one, Kid.”

Contrary to allegation, Waddell uses no script of preprepared puns and allusions. He goes in naked, not knowing for sure whether he can still do it, hoping that fear and adrenaline will combine to produce what his audience demands.

Over the course of the match in question, between Adrian Lewis and Tony Eccles, Waddell whispered and shouted, stood up, threw his arms about, addressed the floor under the desk in front of him, and swung violently in mood from reflection to derangement. Throughout, he held a small towel, like Pavarotti with his handkerchief, which he wound around the microphone and used now as a comfort, now to mop up perspiration. The airliner had a wild-eyed lunatic at the controls.

Waddell told the world about Lewis, from Stoke-on-Trent: “This kid is daft as a brush but when he gets the colours right, he’s a Potteries Rembrandt.” And about Eccles: “In the old days, people from Hartlepool tried to hang a monkey. He’s trying to hang a bear from Stoke-on-Trent.”

Often, he entered sentences without knowing how to get out, relying on mental agility, which arrived just ahead of panic. He managed to use the word “discombobulate", to bring in references to medieval jousting, and to find the following madness: “Hyperbole? Wow, I’d rather use Palmolive.” For Taylor’s match last night, Waddell seemed dumbfounded. “We could see the Power short-circuited,” he managed to say. We did.

One can argue about whether Waddell is funny or erudite, even informative, but not about whether he cares. He lives each dart as if he is the father of the thrower with a ten-grand stake on the outcome. His passion is true. And yes, it’s worth attention.

Explore More Sport

• Athletics

• Boxing

• Cycling

• Sailing

• US Sport