Sixth-form singer-poet

The story has been recounted often enough to inspire every sixth-form poet with visions of instant fame and fortune - how but for good fortune and a perspicacious agent Tanita Tikaram would now be well into an Eng. Lit. course at Manchester University instead of in the midst of a 13-month world tour to promote her second album, The Sweet Keeper.

She got there, first time round, on the the simple, fresh strengths of her songs and an wide-open niche in the market; when the new crop of American female singer-writers - Vega, Chapman, O'Hara - began to make waves there was suddenly a space on this side of the Atlantic for a British analogue. Tikaram's good line in moody lyrics, well gravelled delivery and a musical style that carefully blended Leonard Cohen, Van Morrison and Joan Armatrading, fitted the bill precisely. Her first collection, Ancient Heart was hugely successful and contained some convincingly memorable songs, even if the lyrics didn't bear the closest inspection.

Now, though, she needs something more, and as The Sweet Keeper suggests, and the show at Hammersmith Odeon on Thursday confirmed, that something has yet to arrive. None of the new material has the immediate tang of songs like Twist In My Sobriety and the verbal invention, forcing words into phrases where they really won't fit, is just contrived second time around. When Tikaram lifts the tempo the effect is oddly embarrassing, like a gawky child decked in a party dress several sizes too large; there's nothing instinctive about it, nothing to hint at another vein about to be mined in her songs.

But somehow she has managed to keep the image pristine: the slight figure in the tailored black trouser suit fronting an expert and tactful band really does still suggest the intelligent sixth-former catapulted into the wide world to offer her own simple philosophy on life, love and the unfairness of it all. No one has tried to slick down her stage act or beef up the cringe-making asides to the audience; they're evidently now too much part of the package. Nor can one report that the audience adored it all; the occasional screams seemed ritualised, the outbursts of rhythmic clapping invariably petered out within a few bars. As an occasion it was flat and unrevealing, but then I'm sure she is a very nice girl.