Kylie Minogue joined onstage by Olly Alexander for London Christmas spectacular – REVIEW

It’s official: Kylie owns Christmas! What began as a one-off show at the Royal Albert Hall last year has now become a tradition, with the pop princess popping back to the majestic venue for two more festive shows this year. And “festive” is the word; A Kylie Christmas featured a tree with a K on top, fairies (no jokes please), toy soldiers with manly bulges, chimneys stuffed with dancing girls, snow descending from the ceiling and a free Santa hat on every seat.

Then there was Kylie herself, stunning in sequins, smiling with delight, squeaking with pleasure, running through a two-hour set of Christmas classics and her own back catalogue, eliciting love from a full house with so many men in the audience Old Compton Street and Vauxhall must have been like ghost towns. At the Friday show we attended you could also feel the love between Miss Minogue and her fiancee Joshua Sasse, who was beaming as she got the crowd to sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to him.

Jason Donovan didn’t turn up to do his half of ‘Especially For You’ so Kylie refashioned it as an epic duet between herself and her fans. Olly Alexander, who joined her for ‘Better The Devil You Know’ looked like he was going to cry from the sheer joy of sharing the stage with an icon and John Grant was the perfect choice for a ‘Confide In Me’ sing-off. Katherine Jenkins was another guest and the fact Kylie could hold her own opposite the opera singer proves her voice is much stronger than she’s often given credit for.

‘Your Disco Needs You’, with Kylie in a rainbow dress, was a joyous moment in a show packed with them – and a show that was also packed with such fine festive fodder as ‘Christmas Wrapping’, ‘It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year’ and the newie ‘At Christmas’, which is on the reissued ‘Kylie Christmas’ CD and already sounds like a classic.

The expanded CD is dubbed the Snow Queen Edition and that’s very fitting for the new queen of Christmas. Accompanied by a full orchestra and the National Youth Choir Of Great Britain, Kylie put on a show to warm anyone’s cockles. We wish it could be a Kylie Christmas everyday but Santa baby, we’ll settle for its return in 2017.

A Kylie Christmas – Snow Queen Edition is out now.

@ollyyears Olly Alexander SERVING The Sydney Opera House on his shoulders!!!! Thank you for joining me for Better The Devil You Know 😈 #kyliechristmas

A photo posted by Kylie Minogue (@kylieminogue) on Dec 11, 2016 at 8:57am PST

i got to perform with the legend @kylieminogue for two nights at the @royalalberthall and it’s safe to say it was a sparkling sequinned dream come true, I cannot express how wonderful and kind queen minogue is, I’m so grateful for this experience (me and my mum got so emotional watching the show, and drooling at all the dancers) thankyou to kylie and her team for having me and being so welcoming and lovely (especially as I was mostly a mess the whole time) and to kylies crowd who were (obviously) so aliiiiiive. the show was amazing, can’t really believe I got to do that, and all in a glittery jumpsuit (by the genius @thelarajensen ) WOWWWWWWWWWW ON QUITE A HIGH TBH . also it’s my mums birthday and she’s really happy so I’m happy 🙂 ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️💜💙

A photo posted by Olly Alexander (@ollyyears) on Dec 10, 2016 at 6:13pm PST

Words: Simon Button