"This is a song about the Geneva Convention of human rights," says David Ford, tipping his trilby to an even more rakish angle. "Are you guys into that?" The laughter and applause that greets the number, a scathing Elvis Costello-style satire called Surfin' Guantánamo Bay, suggests that, yes, they might be.

The Eastbourne-born Ford has been honing his art to a small but devoted fan base since he split his band Easyworld five years ago, but with his recent third album, Let the Hard Times Roll, his appeal may finally be broadening. The packed club laps up a set from a singer-songwriter who makes his much-maligned craft look easy and compelling.

Ford's forte is delivering wordy, nuanced meditations on personal and political concerns with verve and aplomb. He possesses a soulful, weathered voice reminiscent of Tom Waits, but also has an energy that suggests early Dylan or, on the coruscating To Hell with the World, Waterboys-era Mike Scott.

Backed by a full band, he skips between instruments and is nobody's idea of a static troubadour. His party piece is looping his guitar, bass and piano parts until he is singing at the centre of a cavalcade of noise like a manically driven one-man band; he ends State of the Union by playing the piano with his feet before leaping over it.

His political subject matter ranges from Stephen, a beautifully moving lament for a murdered Irish policeman, to She's Not the One, an anti-love song for Margaret Thatcher. As the exuberant Ford encores with the roistering folk-punk of Nothing at All and his acerbic signature tune, Cheer Up (You Miserable Fuck), it's clear that he is an artist deserving of a far wider audience.