Plan B, O2, review - Telegraph Two years ago, British singer-songwriter Plan B - Ben Drew, to his friends - had just won a Brit Award and was preparing for a first arena tour that would cement his place as a leading pop star on these shores. He could win another Brit - or two, he's nominated for Male Solo Artist and Album of the Year - this week, but if his O2 Arena show is anything to go by, this tour to promote third album Ill Manors will be a less triumphant one. Where Drew's second album, 2010"s The Defamation of Strickland Banks, re-routed his sound from earthy rap to dancefloor-filling neo-soul, Ill Manors returned to the warts-and-all street wordplay and hip-hop of his debut. He didn't try to weave the two sounds together in this gig of two halves. First came Drew the soul man, dressed in a red-and-black- check suit, and backed by a pastiche Motown house band, the B-Team. Drew's singing was pleasantly husky, if a little strained at times, while singles such as The Recluse and Love Goes Down had verve and plenty of melodic clout. At the halfway point, the two tall columns of screens flanking the stage morphed into eerie high-rise tower blocks, and Drew re-emerged in camouflage trousers and white trainers: now the boy from East London's Forest Gate would showcase the gritty social critiques which provided the soundtrack for his debut feature film last year. The abrasive, sample-heavy hip-hop of songs such as Drug Dealer and Playing with Fire - which featured a cameo from his support act Labrinth - were backed by grubby scenes from the film: of cocaine being cut, prostitution, beatings. Drew's songs document, rather than glorify, these things with vivid, wince-inducing stories, but here his thoughtful rhymes were lost amid the clatter of an arena gig, and his between-songs talk of "broken Britain" and multiculturalism sounded ham-fisted. He was rescued by an intensely exciting encore, which included End Credits, his collaboration with drum "n" bass duo Chase & Status, and Stay Too Long, another single from his soul album. Yet the crowd thinned as Drew closed with a second run through of the Ill Manors title track - he still has work to do to win everyone round to his challenging material.