Stay With Me star Sam Smith is in good company after achieving a chart feat previously managed only by the Beatles.

He is the only act since the fab four to spend almost a year in the top five with a debut album.

According to the Official Charts Company, In The Lonely Hour has already logged 50 weeks in the top five – the best performance since the Beatles’ 1963 LP Please Please Me, which stayed in the top five for 51 weeks.

The Beatles Paul McCartney, John Lennon, Ringo Starr and George Harrison in 1963
The Beatles 1963 LP Please Please Me topped the charts for 51 weeks (PA/PA)

The album has sold a million copies in both the UK and US and won a string of awards.

Sam told OfficialCharts.com: “Seeing this statistic genuinely makes me feel very weird, but also insanely happy and just so thankful to everyone who has purchased the album. Not so lonely any more.”

The only other act to come near this feat was US duo Simon and Garfunkel, who were already a huge success when their final studio album, Bridge Over Troubled Water, spent 52 weeks in the top five after its January 1970 release.

The news will be a much-needed boost for Sam, who had to pull out of planned gigs earlier this month after doctors discovered a haemorrhage on his vocal cords and he flew to the United States to see a specialist.