Lily Allen, London Palladium, London review • DIY Magazine

They say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. ‘They’ have clearly never been in the London Palladium at 8pm on a Friday night, one of a crowd almost exclusively made up of prosecco-imbibed yet impressively word-perfect girls, gays and theys reciting Lily Allen’s words as if they were gospel, an army capable of eviscerating any foe with nothing more than a withering look and a WhatsApp screenshot. Frankly, ‘they’ don’t know the half of it.

Such is the ‘West End Girl’ effect - the cultural phenomenon that saw people the world over gripped, aghast but agog, as pop’s perennial disruptor detailed the breakdown of her once-idealised marriage in jaw-dropping, excruciating detail. When the album first landed late last year with only the most minimal of lead times, the fervour surrounding it seemed - while justified - somewhat inevitable; such salacious celebrity gossip is hard to resist. Now, five months, one media storm, and myriad think-pieces later, you’d be forgiven for wondering whether the narrative might have run out of steam. But if tonight’s show - a front to back performance of the record on the actual West End - proves anything, it’s that a story as compelling as this won’t ever get old.

Less compelling, admittedly, is the curious choice of ‘support act’ - a trio of cellists who, over the course of 45 minutes, cycle through instrumental renditions of Lily’s back catalogue hits while the audience are encouraged to belt out the lyrics via a karaoke-style screen. The result lands somewhere between a Bridgerton ball sequence and a school assembly with the cool vicar who doesn’t mind swearing: when it works (as with the glorious group catharsis of ‘Fuck You’’s unanimous chorus), it’s joyous; when it doesn’t, and the crowd participation dwindles to a half-hearted mumble, you’d rather nobody was singing at all.

But as the safety curtain falls (in true theatre style) and camouflaged stage-hands transform the dais into the New York brownstone where our story unfolds, a sense of mutuality is palpable. Much of the phone call that acts as a coda to opener ‘West End Girl’ is met with pantomime boos; two women are wearing nun’s habits, a homage to the ‘Pussy Palace’ video. Here, her pain is our pain; we’re not just observers to her story, but joint narrators.

And it’s this energy, more so than Lily’s own, that initially thrums as the show’s life force - as ‘Ruminating’ reaches its pounding crescendo amidst club-like lights, she remains as poised and pristine as a doll, and you can’t help but wish she’d kick off her stilettos and embody the track’s messy 4am spiral as we are. As the album’s tale unravels, though, so does her tightly-wound presence, and she hits her stride most when making full use of the smart staging and props: the knife-edge of ‘Relapse’ feels real when she’s emptying her handbag to search for a fix; ‘Pussy Palace’ is just as seedy as its name, all rumpled bachelor pad sheets and incriminating plastic bags; and the already-infamous ‘receipt dress’ of ‘4chan Stan’ is carried off with delicious vitriol.

We may have all been allocated plush velvet seats, but the whole room is on its feet long before Lily’s bouquet curtain call demands a standing ovation. Granted, there are points that call for sharper claws (and the audible venom with which she delivers Madeline’s “love and light” ‘Tennis’ voicenote proves that vim is very much there), but the overarching power of this intimate theatre run is undeniable. ‘West End Girl’ is obviously inspired by an incredibly specific, deeply personal set of circumstances, but tonight Lily Allen is the face of a thousand wronged women, the voice of everyone here who’s been cheated on, lied to, or otherwise fucked over by a man - and emerged all the stronger for it.

Tags: Lily Allen, Reviews, Live Reviews