Review: As the daughter of Loudon Wainwright III and the youngest of the fabulous close harmony Roche sisters, Suzzy, as well as half sister of Rufus and Martha Wainwright, some genetic pre-disposition to music-making and songwriting was probably a given.

Star rating: ***

As the daughter of Loudon Wainwright III and the youngest of the fabulous close harmony Roche sisters, Suzzy, as well as half sister of Rufus and Martha Wainwright, some genetic pre-disposition to music-making and songwriting was probably a given.

Although her storytelling songs, like the somewhat traumatic A&E, are worthy of the work of either parent, Lucy Wainwright Roche is her own woman. One of her strongest compositions here, about witnessing the demolition of an iconic part of the pleasure beach at Coney Island in New York, was more like Richard Thompson than anyone else, which is a considerable compliment.

We'll have to nurture her though, because vaulting ambition is clearly not part of the woman's make-up. Although the conservatory at the back of the Ashton Lane bar was "like playing tennis with the roof on", she was pleased to see us, she said, because she's spent the last two and a half years alone in a car. Actually, she'd driven from Portsmouth the previous day, but we felt her pain, "I'm wretched and tired and the preacher's on fire," she sang. "Deliver me to the next Best Western."

Joined by Eddi Reader on stage, she received some coaching on her presentation skills, but she didn't really need them. Rambling charmingly, her story about meeting The Boss, told by way of an introduction to a version of Bruce Springsteen's Hungry Heart, could have come only from her mouth. The duo also gave us a tribute to Michael Jackson with a version of The Girl Is Mine, Wainwright Roche generously ceding to Reader the more prominent role. But then, like Michael, she's a lover, not a fighter.