Gig review: Professor Green, Picture House

“IT’S BEEN a mad two years,” laughed Professor Green. “It’s only two years since I signed my deal and I’ve had two albums out.”

More than that, his recent No 1 single, Read All About It, has confirmed young London rapper Stephen Manderson as one of the key pop stars of the moment in the UK.

The sold-out crowd were enthusiastic if a little lairy around the edges, but – as is often the case with artists who swiftly arrive at huge populist appeal – they were applauding both the good and the bad in Green’s set. At its best, the show lent a smooth veneer to some hard-edged urban styles, from his signature reappropriations of INXS’ Need You Tonight and The SOS Band’s Just Be Good to Me – in I Need You Tonight and Just Be Good to Green respectively – to the chart dubstep of How Many Moons and the hammering bass breakdown of Monster.

Yet there are also elements of Green’s set which fell back on the blandest of influences. He’s certainly an artist with the kind of tragic backstory favoured by shows like the X-Factor, and – flanked by a male-female vocal duo – his slower tracks like Astronaut, Never Be a Right Time and Avalon were all delivered with the overblown emoting that’s a tedious feature of such shows.

It’s a style echoed in part by the triumphant closer Read All About It, which sadly lacked a surprise appearance by its Scots singer Emeli Sandé, but at least that song’s possessed of a certain emotional spark – one that Green’s going to need to keep finding to maintain his position.

Rating: ***