"I'm kinda numb to all the mayhem now," reflects Carl Barat.

"I don't want to grapple with ghosts and let something upset me on a regular basis. I want to carry on with what I always intended to do."

You can sense Barat's anxiety from his response to the inevitable questions before they are even asked.

The notion of being anyone's partner in crime has held very different connotations for Pete Doherty ever since he burgled Barat's flat in 2003 while they were still forging indie cult status in The Libertines. But such was the impact of their later parting Barat remains haunted by his former soulmate.

"It was very difficult at first," he says. "I was completely destroyed by everything that had gone on with Pete. But it did get easier."

Whether new band Dirty Pretty Things will do anything more than exorcise his baby-faced demons will depend on whether his creative efforts can match them.

Barat and the other former members joining his new venture, drummer Gary Powell and guitarist Anthony Rossomando, have certainly brought their frenzied fanbase with them, resulting in their current tour selling out faster than the time it takes for their estranged bandmate to get arrested these days.

But the legion of fans attending in Libertines attire, reacting most fervently when former glories are revisited, threatens to throw an overbearing weight of expectation upon Barat's shoulders.

"I wanted to be in a band and not get involved in all that publicity game," he insists. "I wanted to keep it about music and not about all that other nonsense."

Not that Dirty Pretty Things are by any means lacklustre. Despite a lukewarm critical response to their opening round of gigs, single Bang Bang You're Dead is full of rugged jauntiness and ramshackle swagger, as fresh as any NME-endorsed guitar band of the current crop.

Followers frustrated that Barat and Doherty remain on separate paths will find much to love in the long-awaited return of their marginally more coherent idol. Dirty Pretty Things' greatest triumph, though, will be the moment they are no longer compared to the Pete and Carl show
Starts at 7.30pm, sold out. Call 01273 673311