THIS year has certainly been unforgettable for Amy Winehouse. Undoubtedly the UK's hottest female act of the moment, her second album Back to Black is still up in the top of the charts a year after it was released and her sideboard is surely collapsing under the weight of prestigious music awards won this year; while her UK arena tour is a sell-out.

But fans planning to attend her BIC gig on Tuesday will hope her night in Bournemouth will be memorable for all the right reasons.

The eagerly-anticipated tour started controversially last week in Birmingham when, it is reported, she appeared half an hour late; managed only four songs but was slurring her words and swaying all over the place.

"She fell into the guitar stand and dropped the microphone. It was atrocious!" said one fan.

The music critic for the Birmingham Mail said it was: "One of the saddest nights of my lifeI saw a supremely talented artist reduced to tears, stumbling round the stage and, unforgivably, swearing at the audience."

The Daily Mirror crowed over a "shambles" in which the tearful singer "hurled down" her microphone.

The Sun headline screamed about "Amy's crazed rant at fans" and slammed her drunkeness. The BBC reported that fans were demanding their money back.

The Daily Telegraph critic, however, leapt to her defence. Yes, her performance was slurred and emotional but mighty powerful for all that, she said.

It might be argued that the 24-year-old has hardly painted herself as a saint with her troubles making tabloid fodder for months. We have seen the pictures of her drunk and bloody. And she has indeed cancelled shows due to health issues and come clean in confessing to addiction to drugs, as well as battling bulimia and bipolar disorder.

Despite the bumpy start to the tour her talent has shone through and there have been less widely publicised positive comments and reviews of later gigs. Her troubles seem to have escalated since her surprise marriage to Blake Fielder-Civil in an unannounced ceremony in Florida in May. It shocked fans and family as the two had split two years earlier - the break-up inspiring several of the songs on Back to Black.

The two spent a brief period in rehab in August, but left after five days much to her family's dismay, prompting her father to write an eulogy for the daughter he has told the press he fully expected to be dead by the end of the year.

During this time she cancelled shows across the UK and Europe and Winehouse and her husband were arrested in Norway for possession of marijuana.

Also during this time the pair were photographed bloodied and bruised in the streets of London after a hotel room fight allegedly started when according to the singer, as quoted in a tabloid newspaper, she was spotted by her husband doing drugs with a call girl.

Now her husband has been remanded in custody as one of five arrested on November 9 pending investigations on a charge of trying to pervert the course of justice in relation to an alleged assault on a bartender in June.

Reports state that there is no suggestion Amy Winehouse is involved.

Meanwhile, Amy's mum has spoken to the press saying she is glad her son-in-law is behind bars. She says she thinks the separation could be what the singer needs to kick her alleged heroin addiction.

She claims he introduced her to hard drugs and she hopes she now has chance to sort herself out.

She told the Daily Telegraph First magazine: "I step back, look at life and think, well, I can see life taking care of the situation. I was more worried when they were together. I think, while they are apart, she will wake up and think, What have I done?' "Again, it's a sense of fate. Thank God because it's also a case of now he's going to learn."

She added: "If the relationship is meant to be, it will survive this. But Amy's got to love him for him, not because she feels sorry for him - not for anything other than that she has respect for him."

She said she had never confronted her daughter about drugs and blamed the singer's wayward behaviour on a "late adolescence".

"The music came too much, too soon, but her talent has turned on her," she said.

"I hope Amy has not been taking drugs long enough for it to be a real addiction. I don't think she's stupid enough to actually keep going. Most people who are hooked on heroin don't have anything else in their life, but Amy has her music, her career, and a loving family."