Sometimes you can overdo the hard work. Juliet works the stage so industriously that she could win employee of the month in a sweatshop. The forced smile that won't go away, the whoops as she cheers herself on, the robotic dance moves and girlish kick her adult legs spontaneously burst into at the same point in each song. The sex appeal that isn't so much oozing as forced through a meat grinder, designed to appeal to the opposite sex but doomed to attract men who prefer their own.

"Can I just say how much I love London," beams the electro-pop singer, having recently moved here from the US. The 25-year-old is clearly an Anglophile - her biggest hit to date is a catchy dance anthem called Avalon and she's dressed as a mod - but English people wouldn't thank Virgin Records for blessing them, nor would they announce which song got them off Prozac, and they don't have the teeth to smile like that. Juliet works so hard at being her own cheerleader that there's little left for the audience to do, which is why they are standing around looking bemused.

Finally, Juliet acknowledges the situation, fixing her steely gaze on one innocent spectator and announcing, somewhat confrontationally, "I appreciate the way you're looking at me right now, it's really awesome." Irony never seemed so terrifying.

Like Pink and Kelly Osbourne before her, Juliet is a pop performer with a rock agenda, convinced that the louder you shout, the more likely you are to be heard. Yet when she drops down a register to sing Waiting, her gentler voice could almost be moving - if it weren't so calculated. Juliet's website stresses her desire for honesty and rawness, bafflingly comparing her music with Nine Inch Nails', when nine-inch heels seem a likelier bet. She claims she never wanted to be a face, and in this she has succeeded - she is faceless.