THERE may be nothing sweet about Gabriella Cilmi, but that hasn’t stopped her rapid ascent to fame this year.

Combining pure pop sass with a sophisticated husk of a voice, her debut single Sweet About Me has proved to be one of the biggest–selling sleeper hits of the year, creeping its way up the charts where it has remained week after week.

A summer of festival appearances seemed a long way off when she made her first media outing in the UK, performing on BBC 2’s Later With Jools Holland before Christmas.

But the British public has proved incredibly reactive to the 16-year-old Australian/Italian singer-songwriter and her album Lessons to be Learned has also become a UK Album Chart ever-present.

Proving that if you’re good enough, you’re old enough, Gabriella has also become the youngest artist to have a No.1 single in her homeland Australia.

Her second single, Save The Lies (Good To Me), is out on August 18.

And you can catch her at Manchester Club Academy on Sunday, October 5.

Tickets priced £12.50 are on sale now from gigsandtours.com, the 24–hour hotline 0871 220 260 or 0161 832 1111.