Sometimes it just isn't your night.

Three songs into her set in the small room at the Komedia, Marina Celeste called a halt to proceedings and pleaded with the staff to turn off the dry ice machine. Her voice, in normal circumstances throaty and charming, had been struggling from the off and now it was reduced to a dry husk.

As Hamlet knew, troubles come not as single spies. Problems with her sound persisted and at one point she contrived to break her microphone.

"The weather was ok today," she said. "And when the weather is ok, something else is not."

The usually glamorous singer was tonight in downbeat mode - dressed in black jeans and black top, her hair pinned back. Her new songs, such as Better Older, reflected on the advantages of experience but the highlights were cover versions, such as In A Manner of Speaking, recalling her time as a mainstay of cocktail-punk outfit Nouvelle Vague.

"This is the last song - just when it started to be good," she said. "We will be back. Everyone deserves a second chance."

Three stars