As Tatu ruminate upon their cancelled UK tour, they may well reflect that the British record-buying public are a whimsical bunch. They behave like a remorseful aunt suddenly remembering her Weight Watchers class midway through dessert.

At least the cod-Sapphic duo discovered the capricious nature of British fandom early in their careers. How must Craig David feel? Six months ago, he was feted by Bono and Elton John and tipped to break into America. Then his second album, Slicker Than Your Average, puzzlingly underperformed. The Albert Hall is far from full. To paraphrase an old gag, the bouncers aren't exactly outside throwing them in, but nor do they have their hands full.

There are screams, but no pandemonium. That at least is explicable. David's shtick requires you to buy the idea that an inoffensive Southampton youngster is, in fact, a perpetually tumescent loverman. Confronted with David in the flesh, disbelief is impossible to suspend. "People say I'm squeaky clean," he snarls, but he snarls it clad in spotless white clothes. You could eat your dinner off him. He sings of "getting more tongue" but demurely leaves the stage to remove his jacket.

In the crotch-grabbing world of R&B, David is as prim as a Victorian miss. On record the disparity seems knowing; live it is merely perplexing. Perhaps his confused fans have fled to horrible old Daniel Bedingfield, a pudgy Christian offering a milder take on David's sound and none of the priapic posturing.

Or perhaps the reason for David's wane is less complex. When he performs his new songs, everything flags. It is not his performance, which is note-perfect, but the material. Written with one eye on America, it lacks the idiosyncratic charm of the songs that made him famous. However daft the lyrics of Fill Me In, its chorus is unforgettable, its sound unlike anything else. The audience bellow along. Another song like that, and the fickle British public may be won round once more.