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With the exception of Harry Styles, the solo careers of former members of televised singing competition groups seldom grip the audience's attention. They usually follow predictable patterns – either an attempt at a toughened-up R&B sound, complete with at least one single including a cameo by an American rapper, or a lunge towards “grownup” mainstream-approved polished adult contemporary – and they usually amount to a barely recalled interim project, the sight and sound of someone enthusiastically passing the years prior to the unavoidable reunion tour.

An Idiosyncratic Path

This common scenario that renders the unconventional route thus far followed by former Little Mix member Jade Thirlwall oddly invigorating. She’s certainly not above doing the kind of things that ex-reality TV group artists are wont to do, including loudly underlining that she's free from the media-trained constraints of the manufactured pop industry – judging by tonight’s crowd, the top-selling product on the merchandise stall is a handheld cooling device emblazoned with the legend “TINA SAYS YOU’RE A CUNT”, a lyric from the track Gossip, her collaboration with dance duo the group Confidence Man – but regardless, the music she’s opted to make is pop of a noticeably more intriguing stripe than usual.

A Superb Debut

She launched her individual career with the previous year's excellent Angel Of My Dreams, a deeply odd, jarring and disjointed mixture of big pop balladry, loud electronic instruments and samples from the classic track Puppet On A String by Sandie Shaw.

During the performance on her first solo tour demonstrates, not every song on her first full-length release That’s Showbiz, Baby! is quite as interesting as that: Before You Break My Heart is extremely memorable, but it's equally standard-issue disco pop, powered by precisely the Motown musical snippet its title suggests; the show is extended with a interpretation of the Madonna classic Frozen that devolves into a medley of nineties club anthems, from the track Pacific State by 808 State to Set You Free by N-Trance.

More Intriguing Material

However, there exists additional material in the vein of Angel Of My Dreams. The song Headache melds an catchy refrain reminiscent of Abba with verses that present a nearly discordant style of rhythmic music or are enfolded by deep reverberation. She offers the track Unconditional to her mum: it features a fabulous melody, eighties-style electronic percussion, and powerful guitar riffs allied to clanging industrial drums. IT Girl unexpectedly reanimates the sound of 2000s electronic punk movement, or more accurately the exciting variation of millennium-era popular music that was strongly inspired by the electroclash genre, while the track Natural at Disaster starts out like a piano ballad before suddenly shifting into a malevolent electronic grind.

A Charming Performer

The artist on stage is a immensely likable, delightfully authentic figure: she declares, she announces at a certain moment, “trembling uncontrollably”; shouting out her queer audience members, who are here in force, she proposes showing appreciation by including a branded jockstrap to the merch stand.

Future Possibilities

It could conclude the manner these kind of solo careers typically finish – the enmity towards former bandmate Jesy Nelson voiced within the song Natural at Disaster patched up, a press conference to declare that the original group are reunited – but the reality that the entire audience appear knowing every lyric as they join in vocally to an album that was released just a few weeks prior makes you wonder. And should it occur, the closing performance of Angel Of My Dreams underlines that Thirlwall’s solo career is unlikely to recede into the realms of the dimly remembered placeholder.

• Jade performs at the Manchester venue O2 Victoria Warehouse in the city of Manchester tonight and is touring the UK through October 23rd.