London,

A night with a talented diva

By John Aizlewood, Evening Standard  07.05.08

Some divas are born. Others, you suspect, have divadom thrust upon them. Despite selling almost 200 million albums, Celine Dion is probably in the latter camp.

In her first London show since 1999, the 40-year-old worked too hard, sweated too much and spent too long on stage to be a genuine diva. And while she did announce that her son Rene-Charles and her mother Therese had joined her in the capital, she had the grace not to parade them to the crowd.

Christened the Taking Chances tour, perhaps in irony, this gaudy, loose-limbed spectacular took very few chances. There were costume changes: five in all (the flared trousers were shockingly unflattering; the gigantic white cape endearingly bonkers and the rest oddly alluring).

There were eight wonderfully choreographed dancers, lighting that could illuminate Neptune and, as if we had chanced upon the set of a misguided Seventies peek into the future, moving walkways.

Those peripherals made the evening, but the show itself was about Dion’s voice. Edith Piaf offered the same conundrum 60 years ago, but it seemed almost a miracle of nature that someone so tiny of waist could produce vocals of such extraordinary power.

Yet whether wrapping itself around James Brown’s It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World, rescuing The Power Of Love from karaoke hell or somehow breathing life into River Deep Mountain High, that voice reinvented whatever it touched. And so poised and believable was her assault on the closing My Heart Will Go On (alas nobody in the crowd remembered to do the Titanic pose), that for a moment you almost forgot what a ghastly slab of hammy old schlock it is.

Indeed, while she remains overly addicted to jobbing American songwriting hacks such as Dianne Warren and Linda Perry for her material, when she unfurled a great song everything made sense.

On the genius Jim Steinman’s It’s All Coming Back To Me Now or that painfully unflinching dissection of a decaying long-term relationship, Think Twice, the drama and too-often suppressed darkness of Dion’s voice made for an almost perfect entwining of singer and song.

As if to confirm that she will never be credible, an ill-conceived medley of Queen’s We Will Rock You and The Show Must Go On was unspeakably naff, but frankly who cares? Certainly not Celine Dion, the anti-diva diva.

Celine Dion also plays the O2 Arena tomorrow (0844 856 0202)

Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.

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