It was never going to be an easy job.

Illness forced Two Door Cinema Club to cancel their Friday headline slot at Latitude Festival, and their replacement faced the pressure of filling their shoes.

Cue Lily Allen.

The straight-talking pop star, who is no stranger to controversy, admitted she was “exhausted by the nastiness” from some disappointed TDCC fans on Twitter.

But she rose to the occasion at Henham Park, playing a surprise late afternoon set on the sun-drenched Waterfront Stage before her headline performance.

With three albums’ worth of hits and the stage presence (and post-watershed language) to carry them off, Allen held court in the Obelisk Arena as the sun set.

Performing surrounded by giant neon-coloured baby milk bottles, she cut a confident figure.

Opening song LDN’s refrain of “sun is in the sky, oh why oh why, would I want to be anywhere else?” seemed apt at the end of a balmy day.

And in homage to the original headliners, she donned a TDCC t-shirt and covered their track Something Good Can Work, laughing “that was a tongue twister and a half, that chorus there!”

She joked that she was supposed to be on a four-day family break, but would rather be at Latitude - offering a tongue-in-cheek apology to her children, who were also at the festival.

Hard Out Here, from this year’s Sheezus, also went down well with the crowd, but there was an even better fit in Keane cover Somewhere Only We Know.

Where better to perform ‘the John Lewis advert song’ than unashamedly middle class Latitude?

Looking like she enjoyed every second on the stage, she certainly earned her headliner status.