Marina & The Diamonds, Bloomsbury Ballroom, London

Marina Lambrini Diamandis certainly lives up to her name on her current bout of London shows, dazzling fans at the first of two performances at London’s suave Bloomsbury Ballroom. Donned in flamboyant striped glasses, a black velvet top and denim hotpants bearing stars and stripes, Marina greets us with an enthusiastic “Hello Diamonds!” before launching into a sparkling set of pop classics.

Kicking off with ‘Girls’, Marina performs the majority of her debut album ‘The Family Jewels’, along with a few special extras, including 3OH!3’s ‘Starstrukk’. A costume change halfway through, to a casual dungarees and oversized pink heart-shaped glasses, kickstarted the gig’s second half, with ‘Hollywood’ animating the crowd to the greatest extent yet.

Bantering with the crowd throughout, the charismatic frontwoman turns down the offer of a spare room from a heckler, confronts a man dressed as Jesus, and rebukes cries of “Take if off” when exclaiming that that her velvet top is making her perspire. Despite putting on a mesmerising performance it seems that the back half of the ballroom aren’t quite as captivated as the front half of the audience, with noisy chatter detracting from an otherwise bewitching set.

The night culminates with the quirky ‘Mowgli’s Road’, Marina donning a pair of palm tree-shaped shades and encouraging the crowd to chant “cuckoo” with her. An all-round success, although some people obviously had to be reminded they were at a gig, not a coffee morning.