Handicapped by hailing from Wolverhampton rather than Washington and by never quite managing to acquire the fistful of classic songs that would have pushed her to household name status, instead Beverley Knight MBE has had to settle for 15 years as Britain’s premier soulstress.

Lesser lights would have long been dimmed at the frustration of failing to make the final breakthrough but Knight is a trouper extraordinaire and at last night’s low key show (she’ll sell out the Royal Albert Hall next April) to mark the release of her sixth album, 100%, she was in the form of her career.

She may be down to earth (“Hot in here, innit?”) and more eager to please than an about-to-be-fed puppy (“I want you to love this,” she pleaded before the new In Your Shoes) but she was a high-kicking, finger-pointing, charisma-oozing, hand-clapping ball of sex-tinged energy, whether she was almost literally punching out the most exhilarating version of the hoary old Piece Of My Heart I’ve encountered; her own meaty manifesto Soul Survivor or the anthemic Beautiful Night.

And when her supertight band left her and her keyboardist to emote through the stately Gold and Bare, she was a more believable, less sterile Whitney Houston.

A tepid version of The Bee Gees’ ever-naff Too Much Heaven was the only misstep but the closing Come As You Are (not the Nirvana one) left a rabid crowd uplifted, cleansed and wondering if we’ve been rather taking Beverley Knight for granted all these years.