Opinion on Peter (formerly Pete) Doherty tends to be split between those who regard him as a poet in the mould of Byron, Bukowski and Baudrillard, for whom the conventions of everyday life are to be treated with haughty disdain — and those who regard him as a slug-faced, heroin-addled buffoon with personal hygiene issues.

Last night’s brief, strange but beguiling affair, before a crowd including The Who’s Roger Daltrey, offered a surprising third way: Professional Peter.

In the “good” old days, Doherty’s shows with The Libertines and Babyshambles were chaotic, if they happened at all. Instead, he arrived on stage just four minutes late and whereas once he would be topless and crowd-surfing during the first song, Professional Peter wore a three-piece suite and kept his collar buttoned from first to last. He didn’t even break the smoking laws.

Doherty has found a new musical direction on his forthcoming album Grace/Wastelands. His band features Blur guitarist Graham Coxon and Blur producer Stephen Street but said direction evokes Damon Albarn’s The Good, The Bad & The Queen side-project, with added British whimsy.

Once, Doherty was the new Clash; now he’s in thrall not just to Albarn but to Victoria Wood and Lionel Bart, too.

Newly mellow, Professional Peter revisited his punk past sporadically and only the brisk encore of The Libertines’ Time For Heroes enticed the crowd to throw beer and slam dance. At his best, notably Broken Love Song (which, perhaps uniquely in popular music, refers to both QPR and The Beatles) or Palace Of Bone with its Bart-esque line about picking a pocket or two, this was a talent being gloriously reborn.

And if the cruise-ship trad jazz of Sweet By And By was so jaw-droppingly hopeless, and if the crowd were so starved of familiar material they booed when the lights went up after that solitary encore, so what?

Being a truly reformed character was never meant to be easy. For someone so seemingly spineless, he was musically fearless last night.