Sophie Ellis-Bextor has come a long way since her first Edinburgh appearance fronting short-lived indie band TheAudience at La Belle Angele in 1998.
While the intervening years have seen her epitomise T4-friendly disco diva electro-pop, this year's Wanderlust album has found her pretty much coming full circle in collaboration with Mercury nominated singer/song-writer Ed Harcourt.
Harcourt is at the keyboards as part of the black-clad sextet that accompany Ellis-Bextor on the current leg of the tour to support the album, as they were earlier in the year at Oran Mor in Glasgow. In what is effectively a two-act show, the stage is bathed in red as Ellis-Bextor enters in matching mini-dress to open with the eastern-tinged movie theme melodrama of Birth of An Empire before moving through a conceptual pot-pourri of off-kilter ballads, woozy waltzes and epic chorales.
Some charming between-song banter covers tour bus Conga injuries and what Ellis-Bextor considers to be her somewhat shaky dance skills.
There is a vote to decide which cover version she should do, with a euphoric take on New Order's True Faith winning out over Pulp's Do You Remember The First Time? Ellis-Bextor sings all this with such cut-glass clarity that it's a wonder she hasn't been picked up for one of Andrew Lloyd-Webber's better musicals by way of Eurovision and a James Bond soundtrack.
A quick change into something sparklier and Ellis-Bextor returns for a half-hour burl through her hits that transforms the venue into the shiniest of nightclubs, before an unamplified duet with Harcourt in the centre of the floor closes a show performed with panache, wit and considerable style.
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