Onstage, Peyroux is not unlike Julia Roberts, charmingly diffident but holding back the wide open smile and, given her Parisian busking experiences, surprisingly reluctant to engage with her not unsympathetic audience.

Leonard Cohen's 'Dance Me to the End of Love' opens the album more effectively than it opened the gig, mainly because either Peyroux or her sound engineer was less than confident in her capable rhythm guitar. Even a laid back version of the Hot Club style, sans drummer, needs those chunking chords to hold it together. Not that the excellent Sam Yahel (piano/organ) and Matt Penman (double bass) weren't well into the groove.

Thereafter, the liberties Peyroux now takes with the material made much of the show more creative than the album, if still a little remote. The delicate glissandi of the vocal lines were beguiling and even if it is too close to Billie Holiday, the sheer musicality is enchanting. Hanging late on the second chorus line of 'Between the Bars' was an especially sweet moment, drawing extra colour from the subtly altered chords.

The downside is that this teasing and decoration becomes a musical displacement activity. Lacking a direct delivery, WC Handy's classic 'Careless Love', shrank in the shadow of Bessie Smith.

More convincing was Peyroux's own 'Don't Wait Too Long', and 'J'ai Deux Amours', French being almost guaranteed to lift any singer into communication.

Maybe too much touring or fun the previous night had clipped the top off her range as there were a couple of worrying cracks. Such a smooth and flexible voice needs care.

I'd like to hear her when both she and her audience are not short of sleep.