Young Joe Gibbons looked at home behind the mike, as well he might after 18 months' semi-pro experience. The schoolboy crooner sounded convincing, too, pitching his vocals strongly in a mature voice with a regulation mid-Atlantic accent.

Between numbers he chatted amiably in Hornchurch tones slightly east of Jamie Oliver. Not a bad performance for a lad who turned 15 only last month, you'd suppose, but the regulars here are pitiless with newcomers. Most are singers themselves.

"Needs work on his vowels," said one. "They're messing up his diction," said another. "He needs that sorted before he gets into bad habits."

Caroline Yes, by the Kaiser Chiefs, was certainly unintelligible, but then probably so is their entire album. Feet Do Your Stuff was better, its do-a-runner lyric apt for a tall, slim youth who looks older than his years, and his sensible parents maintain a code-red groupie alert.

"One girl followed Joe around," explained his mother. "Told him she was 18. Turned out she was 28. His Nan soon saw her off." The latter lady can take another bow, for although you might expect Joe's idol to be Jamie Cullum, he prefers Chet Baker, Mel Torme and Sammy Davis, three stars whose artistry reached him only via his grandmother's vinyl LPs.

Touches of Chet were present in a final ballad, What's New, before Joe gave way to the main event, Patti Revell.

A steely blonde in white raincoat, tank top, navel tattoo, blue jeans, brick-thick crepe-soled sandals and panda-like mascara, Patti belted out slick funk and showtunes (Hearts Take Time, Better Than Anything, All My Tomor rows) with professional aplomb. "See, Joe," she seemed to be saying, "it's not so easy up here."