"There’s only two types of people in the world/The ones that entertain and the ones that observe." The now infamous words of Britney Spears, who, if you didn’t already know, belongs in the first category. Well, tonight in The O2, she’s got 90 minutes to prove it.
After a flash-bang introduction (what’s a few minutes to an Irish Britney fan who’s been waiting five years?), she’s descending on us atop an extraordinary, glittered platform. She looks phenomenal – not just toned and taped and painted, but really, naturally gorgeous.
Clad in the outfit I imagine you’d find on Ringleader Barbie, she proceeds to not launch into ‘Circus’ from her platinum-selling album of the same name, not segueing into the Pap-bashing ‘Piece Of Me’. See how annoying this is? Imagine sticking out 90 minutes of Britney Spears not doing something. That’s right – an entire show passed without so much as a ‘La La La’ from the main woman herself (rumours circulated that the breathy words of ballad ‘Everytime’ were in fact coming from Spears’ own mouth but I remain unconvinced.)
But the lip-synching, we expected. What’s different about this tour is that while we always knew she couldn’t sing while writhing around on a stripper pole, she’s now proved that she can’t sing while pacing in a leisurely manner around the stage. Let’s be clear about this, her Circus is no more a display of musical talent than when your Granny gets her Jack Russell to growl along with the radio.
So here’s the charge sheet: no attempt at singing, passable dancing and cliched circus tricks that we haven’t been impressed by since the age of eight (and even then it was more the candyfloss that got us going). Indeed a great deal of the show consists of our curvy ring mistress being catapulted around the stage on some form of glittered prop (cage, oversized umbrella or giant levitating photo frame) while a bazaar of (frankly outstanding) dancers make mischief around her.
So why, then, can’t I take my eyes off the dazzling woman? Witnessing what is essentially a lot of dumb show, why am I so spectacularly entertained? Maybe it’s the funky-as-hell string of old favourites (‘Boys’, ‘Toxic’, ‘Slave 4 U’ and ‘Baby One More Time’). Maybe it’s the astonishing pomp of routines like the Bollywood-ified remix of ‘Me Against The Music’ and stomping finale ‘Womanizer’. Or maybe it’s because our Brit’s got whatever intangible, indefinable quality it is that makes people want a piece of you like a kitten wants a piece of string.
Beautiful, commanding and irrepressibly charismatic throughout, a seemingly happy Spears showed us a hell of a lot of teeth tonight and just enough energy to carry the night, never more impressively than during some genuinely drop-jaw moments of showwomanship when she, blindfolded and gimped up to the nines, didn’t sing ‘Touch Of My Hand’ (last one, I promise).