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Dua Lipa review – orchestral special boasts Elton John but tips into old-fashioned Eurovision

Accompanied by a 53-piece orchestra and 14-strong choir, the pop superstar forsakes many of her biggest hits to perform the entirety of her coolly received new album

There’s certainly plenty of pivotal moments in musical history to choose from – it was here that Bob Dylan and his Fender Stratocaster faced down a mob of baying folkies in 1966 and the Jimi Hendrix Experience ended their last European show amid the wreckage of smashed equipment – but it turns out that the singer has rather more august figures in mind: “Winston Churchill, Charles de Gaulle, Albert Einstein,” she offers. The show offers an impressively ballsy setlist that skips a lot of Lipa’s hits – no New Rules, IDGAF, One Kiss, Hallucinate or Break My Heart – in favour of playing every track from this year’s coolly received Radical Optimism, presumably with the cameras in mind. In fairness, some of its contents sound more striking tonight – the passive-aggressive Happy for You gains a surprising amount of emotional heft – and equally, you can’t miss the surge in audience excitement when she rolls out Levitating, or summons an ebullient Elton John to the stage to perform their duet Cold Heart.

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