Nearly three years after his first album, the most common response to the name Stephen Fretwell is still "Who?" But the Manchester-via-Scunthorpe songwriter is slowly making headway. His label sent him to New York to make his new album, Man on the Roof, and he is certainly playing a better class of dive these days - the Hospital is a swish members' club whose ground floor is hosting the Warhol vs Banksy exhibition.

In the basement, it's free beer (courtesy of Q magazine, which is sponsoring a series of monthly gigs here) and around 100 spectators, most here for more than just the booze. They are loud in their appreciation, yelping when he strums the opening chords of the mini-hits Emily and Run, and cackling when he twice apologises for the "miserableness" of the songs.

There's enough wretchedness to go around. Plucking an acoustic guitar as he ambles through both albums, he confesses to being a spurned lover (Darlin' Don't), a flop with girls (Coney) and one of those guys who just can't get it right with women (Run). There's more in that vein, but you get the idea. Luckily, he has managed to funnel the lady angst into the kind of husky-voiced, Radio 2-ish ballads that David Gray and Damien Rice find so profitable.

By the end, even the uncommitted are a little bit in love with the man, if not his music. And that's the problem. It's impossible to dislike Fretwell - what's not to love about a singer who apologises for fluffing a song because he's "never played it stood up before"? But it's entirely possible to be unmoved by his music.

· At Luminaire, London, on September 11. Tickets available by competition only: theluminaire.co.uk