With her MTV blonde hair and High Street style, each time Lucie Silvas finishes a song, you half expect Kate Thornton to wrap a grasping, needy arm round her shoulders.

That X-Factor vision is appropriate because, tonight Matthew, I'm going to be Simon Cowell.

First the good stuff, as 25-year-old Lucie clearly has talent, if not a breathtaking amount of originality.

The singer-songwriter possesses a clear, strong voice and soft, gentle nature on the piano, making the darker, bluesy numbers and ballads highlights of the night.

She's also clearly popular amongst the hundreds of fans present, who happily sing her words on request.

For someone unfamiliar with Lucie, however, there's not much to hum during a set filled with lacklustre, mid-tempo pop, which KT Tunstall does sassier and Kelly Clarkson does cheesier.

Then there's the voice. Lucie has drawn comparisons to Christina Aguilera, not unfairly it must be said, but the Leicestershire lass's fake mid-Atlantic accent is a poor facsimile compared to a true mid-West American drawl.

Next up, lyrics. Lucie deals only in love as in relationships, never raw, passionate, staircase-before-the-bedroom love.

She's always running away from, travelling back to, wanting to be saved by, or finally saying farewell to, some unnamed hunky bloke, who in my mind's eye is one of those pretty but vacant chancers from Temptation Island.

It's like being beaten over the head by a 12-year-old girl's diary. If Dawson's Creek ever becomes a West End musical, you'll know who's behind it.

Finally, Lucie spilled the last dregs of my sympathy during a hopelessly ill-judged cover version of Coldplay's Yellow.

She plays to all the song's weaknesses and none of its strengths. The tempo is slowed down and the bass-line stretched, which flattens the song's powerful melody until all the energy is squeezed out.

That done, Lucie tramples over the remains of the tune with her holler.

This has the doubly-distracting result of over-emphasising words which Chris Martin will be the first to admit are there primarily to fit the tune, not poetry.

Sharon, Louis I'm sorry to say but, for me, Lucie Silvas is a no.