Keeley Rodgers admires Leona Lewis's style - but not her heels.

THERE’S no denying how far the once shy teenager has come since making the hairs on our necks stand up as she graced the stage of X-Factor in 2006. But there's no harm in a little reminder either, as we discovered when she played Oxford's new Theatre on May 11.

First things first – after the opening song Leona tells her audience how her performance in the fairly modest venue is going to be an "intimate show". And she didn’t disappoint.

I think this phrase is normally suited to the football pitch but it seemed a show of two halves. There was the ‘new look’ Leona dressed in playsuits...one of which looked like she had a tea-towel slung over her shoulder. Then, and arguably the most popular side, was the Leona, who along with Simon Cowell, we all grew to love. Belting out the ballads to an almost packed venue she proved once again that her voice is best suited to the big songs.

Not that I'm one to shout "play us one we all know" but it was the classics that attracted the most applause.

She looked slightly uncomfortable trying to turn up the tempo with some of her new material, not to mention the nine inch heels they put her in! But she seemed to display a certain air of ‘pop diva’ as if on cue a gothic-type throne was brought out so she could rest her feet.

What did work was when she combined the old with the new and my favourite performance was probably the reggae-style mash-up of her classic Better in Time. She also stamped her take on covers such as Bruno Mars’ Locked Out of Heaven but was much more at home with ballads like The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face. Unlike Leona’s hot heels, it did take a while for the crowd to warm up and get on its feet and as usual it was towards the end of the show that fans were just getting started. But looking around there was more than enough “chair swaying” and shoe-tapping throughout.

There were also plenty of phones out, an inevitable sign of our obsession to capture “a moment like this”. Leona lapped up the attention though and even made one of many male admirers’ Christmases all come at once as she asked for his phone to take a snap of her with the audience in the background. As promised at the start Leona did have a level of intimacy with her fans and sang a particularly moving tribute to her grandmother with a stunning performance of Footprints in the Sand. I, probably like every other audience member, left the theatre remembering exactly why the nation fell in love with the now international superstar all those years ago – I mean, there aren’t many other X-Factor winners still pulling in the crowds like she does.

But I do hope that her once famous corkscrew curls aren’t gone forever and they might yet make a few more appearances along with her early ballads. Not forgetting some more comfortable-looking heels!