5/5

Paul Heaton and Jacqui Abbott are on the home straight and still going strong. They’ve had a whirlwind year of chart success — their Christmas single, a delightful swipe at a certain reality TV talent show is number two in the country and western charts — sold-out tours and, in between, the picketing of high street employers who don’t pay a living wage.

But there’s no lethargy on show here. On the contrary. As their current union-backed tour has wound its merry way around these islands, Heaton has opened up more and more with anecdotes and “daddy dancing,” with both growing more extravagant along the way.

Abbott has rarely been found without a grin throughout her time back doing what she does best, accompanying Heaton on a near 30-year run through of some of the finest pop songs ever crafted.

They’ve been here before of course and at even bigger venues but this time it feels more real and more personal. Heaton sips water between songs these days and Abbott is no longer just another cog in the hit machinery.

Her voice hasn’t just stood the test of time and more than a decade of silence, it now has a deep, soulfully sweet and almost melancholic quality to it. That’s no more in evidence than on her cover of the Eta James classic, the despairing Loving Arms.

But it is the songs that Heaton’s penned that hold the entire night together, from the recent hit DIY to a rather heavy-metal version of the revamped Perfect 10.

In front of a Soviet-style backdrop, he’s all crumpled, bespectacled charm as he sweats a bucket over those tears we forget we ever shed on Let Love Speak Up Itself.

It seems as if both artist and audience have forgiven each other something. But, as we reach for our camera phones in case we ever forget it, we never did fall out.

Playing the Roundhouse, London, tonight. Details: paulheaton.co.uk

Matthew Collins