Thank God for the drama class kids. Many of them are unbearable, of course, but sometimes they grow up to be Lady Gaga. The Mayhem Ball, which last night stormed London’s O2 for the first of four dates in the capital, is an outsized throwback to the performer’s pop roots, as well as a testament to her love of deeply serious world-building.
Framed around a battle between a flamboyant super-villain with a cane (played by Gaga herself) and a virginal naif in white (also Gaga), both of whom represent the creative chaos within her (or something), this is an absolute howler of a show. You haven’t quite lived until you’ve seen “Shallow” from A Star Is Born being sung by Gaga to her evil twin while the pair are hauled across the stage on a tiny tugboat lit by a ye olde lamp. Yet The Mayhem Ball is also so impeccably put together – with bombast, speed, costume changes, explosions and such lovely sincerity from its headliner – that it quickly becomes clear that you are watching the concert of the year.
It arrives at an interesting moment for the star. Gaga’s relationship to her music has fluctuated in recent years. She’s acted to great acclaim, released a makeup line, plugged an inexplicable amount of migraine medication, and become seemingly more comfortable performing lounge-bar ditties and duets with the elderly than anything that could truly make your ears perk up. Then in March she released Mayhem, a mixed bag of a record that nevertheless contained enough glorious industrial rock and synth-pop to suggest she wasn’t eager to throw in the towel just yet.
The Mayhem Ball follows suit, with a setlist made up of (almost) wall-to-wall bangers, and Gaga back to stomping and air-clawing her way through intricate choreography while surrounded by a sea of dancers – I counted 22 of them, though there could easily have been 50, for all I know. We first glimpse Gaga atop a cage concealed by a 25-foot Tudor gown, thrashing her arms about to “Bloody Mary” – a song repopularised by a TikTok trend – and then “Abracadabra”, a Mayhem single awash in lyrical gobbledygook.
Everything after that resembles the dreamscape of an outrageously creative homosexual with infinite sums of money at his disposal. Gaga performs some Nine Inch Nails cosplay while cavorting with a skeleton in a box that resembles a giant cat litter tray. Then she engages in a drag-down fight with her masked doppelganger in said cat litter tray. Then she throws on a Donatella Versace wig and some cyborgian crutches to sing her dreamy classic “Paparazzi”. Then she begs for mercy while being dragged backwards into a hole by an enormous veil coloured like the Pride flag. All of this is, give or take, about 25 minutes into the two-and-a-half-hour-long show.
For Gaga, no set piece is too elaborate, no framing device too ludicrous (“Eternal Aria of the Monster Heart” is the title of the show’s fifth act, naturally). “Born This Way”, performed with original choreography plus lots of bonus vogueing, remains a potent celebration of joy and defiance. There is a lovely comeback for her very Gwen Stefani-coded “Summerboy”, from her debut record The Fame, which is sung in what resembles a nightclub space by way of a subway train. And the now Gaga-standard “sitdown at the piano” section – which tonight includes her smash-hit duet with Bruno Mars, “Die with a Smile”, as well as long-dormant ballad “Speechless” and a stripped-back “The Edge of Glory” – sees her become visibly moved, as she wipes away tears while celebrating nearly 20 years in pop.
And then it all rounds off with an encore that is strikingly ordinary: a live feed from backstage projected onto the screen, Gaga launching into her sherberty love song “How Bad Do U Want Me” while wiping away her makeup and throwing on an oversized sweater and beanie before returning to the main arena. After two hours of spectacular insanity, a reminder, then, of the tiny, emotional, blushing New York theatre kid responsible for it.
