It’s a fitting celebration… but oh Madge, isn’t it time you grew up? SARAH VINE reviews Madonna’s Celebration Tour

You can tell a lot about an artist by their audience. In Madonna’s case, on the first night of her huge Celebration tour at London’s O2 Arena, they – like their idol – came to kill.

A sea of ​​lacy fingerless gloves and giant crucifixes, huge bows and quilted military hats, leather jackets and white tulle – and yes, more than a few cone bras.

Inside, the atmosphere was a reverent welcome. There were plenty of empty seats, perhaps as a result of Hamas declaring it a ‘day of jihad’ (Madonna used to be a vocal supporter of Israel), but perhaps also because of the amazing prices, with some regular tickets costing £400. Does not matter.

Who better to introduce the Queen of Pop herself than Drag Queen Bob (or ‘Slag Queen Bob’, as she referred to herself), winner of the eighth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Channeling Bridgerton’s Queen Charlotte, Bob took to the stage in wig and full Regency dress, whipping the audience into a frenzy with a potted history of Madonna’s illustrious career spanning four decades.

A flourish of his monocle and she appeared, in full cape and halo, under another giant halo, belting out Nothing Really Matters from her 1998 album Ray of Light.

The Madonnas in the row behind me went wild; a man three seats down in a leather harness and singles simply bellowing ‘Icon!’

From there it was capes, corsets off, dancers on stage – and right across the board. There was an explosion of dancing mums from the audience as the scene resembled a scene from Kings Road in the mid 1980s.

“Only Madonna could look this good in a knee brace,” I thought to myself as she rocked out to Get Into The Groove like a woman half her age 65. Then it was time for a little chat.

She talked about being an ‘anorexic dancer’, how her father had refused to help her, how she never gave up even when she was hungry and homeless.

For a stadium of 20,000 people, it felt surprisingly intimate. Then she grabbed a guitar and gave a raucous rendition of Burning Up. A lot of people sat down for it, probably because unlike our icon, we didn’t have knee braces. Then it was a beer and more tales of awkward youth, including how she would go out on dates with men simply for the purpose of using their toiletries.

“I do shower work,” she said, which – knowing her children were in the audience – made me cringe a little.

She was about to launch into her next hit – Open Your Heart – when the gremlins of the first night struck, and she and Queen Bob had to spend the next ten minutes or so telling rather lukewarm jokes while some bits of magic electronics could not do as they were told.

It was a shame: Power went down, people started using their phones.

It was back on track, and it was time for a lot of rather complicated sex dances, which turned into a scene about the 80s, when Madonna left the fantastic Manhattan club Paradise Garage, which in turn turned into a vacation , all pink and neon green and Vivienne Westwood frocks.

So far, so fun. The public loved the nostalgia, the wickedness of Madonna, the colors, the costumes.

Then a change of pace, and the mood became more reflective. Live To Tell was recast, rather spectacularly, as a eulogy for all AIDS victims, Madonna floating in an open casket against giant black-and-white photos of pop culture icons lost to the disease: Freddie Mercury, Robert Mapplethorpe, countless others. A single red balloon flew up.

From then on, the whole show took a distinctly operatic—some might say overly bombastic—turn.

As a prayer began with various leather-masked Christ-like figures writhing in Gregorian chant inside giant Perspex boxes against a backdrop of neon crosses. As you do.

A troupe of sexy boxers in quilted gloves were obligingly posed for Erotica and we were treated to a recreation of the infamous conical bra/bed/masturbation dance scene.

For this, she enlisted the help of an alter ego dressed as her younger self, which I think we can all agree takes masturbation pleasure to a whole new level.

Things got even hotter and heavier for Justify My Love – literally, as the stage burst into flames as a variety of biblical figures did unspecified Old Testament things in a reading from the Book of Revelation.

No doubt it is intended as deeply meaningful; in practice, quite tedious.

Still, the hits were there – and, in Beyonce style, she even made it a family affair with strong stage performances from daughters Lourdes and Mercy. The latter is a bit of a star.

If this show has a problem, it’s that it’s too long, too satisfying – and has too many pretentious interludes. I can see why – the body of work is huge and there’s a lot of ground to cover. Plus, at 65, she needs her vacation. But the main point, I think, is that she seems to have underestimated her audience a bit.

Quite a few around me left early, retreated to the bar or simply went on the phone, bored by the excessive symbolism and the endless, slightly embarrassing, on-stage teasing and choking.

Waiting for the train afterwards, the general post-concert chatter I heard was not universally positive. I think what she hasn’t quite realized is that her core fans (and those who can afford tickets) are oldies (well, oldies, anyway).

We love it because it has been there all our lives: I still remember dancing to Like A Virgin as a teenager.

But while we’ve all grown up and moved on, she doesn’t seem to have.

She still wants to be that tough 19-year-old who lives a strange and lost life in 1980s New York.

She still fancies herself ‘edgy’, still wants to be one of the cool kids, when in fact she’s a grown woman, a global icon – and the true queen of pop – who really has nothing to prove to no one else.

If only she could stop trying to be something she’s not, she’d be an even bigger icon than she already is. And this review would be five stars instead of four.