Jessie J review, Royal Albert Hall, London: Pop singer is best without the gimmicks

Jessie J is at her best when she isn’t trying. Performing at the Royal Albert Hall in London, the singer born Jessica Cornish is clearly determined to regain her status as a leading UK pop artist.

Vocally, there are few British acts who can match her: she has a pop-friendly fluidity but also sneaks in a grittier rock edge, with the kind of controlled growls, snarls, whistles and melismatic swoops that Christina Aguilera would applaud. This skill was somewhat “rediscovered” after she took part in the Chinese competition Singer – not as a judge, but as a contestant – and finally received the adulation she so clearly craves.

It was a smart move. Now you feel inclined to pay more attention to her technical skill, whether it’s the lightning speed of her delivery or her eagerness to show off her impressive range. Sometimes she over-reaches, and her highest falsetto becomes brittle. But when she succeeds, she is superb.

Renditions of her best tracks from this year’s four-part album (essentially four EPs) ROSE – where she addresses issues like self-worth, confidence and past relationships, are sublime. She has no trouble projecting her voice to the highest balcony. It’s the distractions – costumes, video, skits – that mar what could be a fantastic show.

There are heartfelt moments, such as when she reveals she was told by a doctor that she is unable to have children (“f*** that, I will have kids”), before her performance of “Four Letter Word”, a soft R&B ballad where she imagines life with the baby she craves. Other parts of the show – from the numerous costume changes to the broadcast of Jessie J in various outfits as she clutches roses or wanders through fields on a screen at the back of the stage – feel too contrived and allow no room for spontaneity.

Voiceovers where she bares her soul and speaks about her music are occasionally lovely, but often excruciating: “I want to be standing inside the love, not drifting around it,” she declares, later appearing to blame the UK press for the lukewarm reception to her third album, 2014’s Sweet Talker. Yet once the screen goes blank (aside from some cheap-looking rose graphics), she transforms. “I know I’m somewhere posh because I pronounce the ‘t’ in ‘water’,” she jokes of her opulent surroundings.

Her biggest hits are jazzed up or mellowed out with the help of her fantastic band. “Bang Bang” gets the crowd on their feet for one of the first times this evening as she whoops and trills her way through the multi-platinum hit. Her boyfriend, Hollywood actor Channing Tatum, is well into the show by now – safely concealed in his box at the back of the venue, he waves his arms back and forth with the most earnest of fans. But Jessie J is more concerned with how the rest of the crowd are doing: she calls out to her mates in the audience, engages in a sing-off with one incredibly enthusiastic fan, and pleads with others not to belt out the lyrics if they don’t actually know them.

“I left this one until the end so you couldn’t leave,” she beams, before launching into her 2011 single “Price Tag”. As she drags her friends onstage for one last singalong, beaming, clearly lost in the moment, something finally clicks and the entire audience – for the first time – is right there with her.