The chances of achieving a long and fulfilling career for any X-Factor contestant are unpredictable to say the least. Even if you win the competition, this won’t necessarily save you from HMV’s bargain bins and getting by gigging on cruise ships: just ask Leon Jackson or Steve Brookstein. Also, whereas it was once the norm to release any contestant’s debut album as soon as possible, for fear the public would forget, Leona Lewis’s enormous success after waiting almost 12 months to release her record has allowed the programme’s more celebrated participants more time to launch their post-show career.

In the case of 18-year-old Diana Vickers, she’s used her time to take on a role in the West End and to record her debut album Songs from the Tainted Cherry Tree. For this, she has worked with a myriad of music’s finest songwriters, including pop sensation Ellie Goulding, kooky songstress Nerina Pallot and the man behind countless chart toppers, Guy Sigsworth.

On stage at the Academy, Vickers is engaging, charismatic and clearly has a great pair of lungs. And yet there’s a strangely muted atmosphere throughout her set.

That may be partly because the songs have only been known to people for a week, but it’s also down to the fact that though the tracks have been moulded to perfection in the studio, a few fall a bit flat live.

Once is an up tempo, riotous stomper of a track and Vickers’s version of Snow Patrol’s Just Say Yes is very good indeed, but the other tracks feel a bit ‘tick-boxy’ in their approach and lack any real spark. There’s also the fact that at 18, Vickers seem far too young to be singing about any of the topics she touches on, giving her stuff a vapid impression. Compare her to someone like Ellie Goulding or Paloma Faith and she, ironically, seems to lack the X-Factor.