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An awesome and ridiculous film that leaves you thrilled beyond the point of your natural endurance
2012
Theatre
The show has suddenly become quite wonderful, and the galvanising factor is the terrific stage debut of Melanie C
Blood Brothers
Music
The British pop music industry may be eating itself but if Muse are the pick of what it can offer the world in 2010 then British music is in rude health indeed
Muse
I was smitten by both Gilberts enormous luxuriant moustache and the intelligence and nuance of this highly entertaining play
I totally recommend Babbo to anyone who is looking for really good and traditional Italian food
Always been a fan but never seen them live. I was ecstatic to be part of this epic event. WOW!
London,
John Aizlewood's rating
Reader rating
Description: The chart-topping five-piece perform songs from their Out Of Control album.
Phone: 0871220 0260
Website: www.theo2.co.uk
Email: customerservices@theo2.co.uk
Trains: Tube: North Greenwich, BR: Westcombe Park Railway Station 
, Tube / Bus: 108, 129, 161, 188, 422, 472, 486 
Extra info: Air Conditioning, Food, Pub, Telephones
Force of nature: Girls Aloud turn on the glam for their adoring public at the O2
As the acceptable, slightly cool but slightly kooky face of manufactured pop, Girls Aloud are refreshingly honest about what they do. Not for them the ego-tickling pretence of being songwriters or great singers. And for all their ubiquity, they avoid merging the personal and professional and so last night offered no clues to the state of Cheryl and Ashley Cole’s marriage (although he was present, unlike her wedding ring) or any hint of how their individual and collective mindset, bar the unremarkable assertion that they were pleased to be with us.
Instead they are what they are: a collective force of nature. As such, they offered a relentless jackhammer of a show. Its harshness was too loud for some younger fans but as a statement of intent for a group who have made five albums when they weren’t expected to last five minutes, it was an undeniable clunking fist.
Yet there was an endearing absence of slickness to their choreography, from the hole in one of Sarah Harding’s costumes to the rickety platform which took them, eventually, onto the mini-stage halfway to the back. They even had their Spinal Tap moment at the start of the opening, The Promise, when Cole’s hydraulic platform malfunctioned and she was singing from underneath the stage as the others hovered nine feet above it.
Less heart-tugging was the surfeit of album tracks from Out Of Control — nine — which made for a passive audience, despite the Pussycat Dolls-esque pole dancing routine during Fix Me Up and the elegance of Miss You Bow Wow. Girls Aloud are many things but they are not an albums act, while covering Britney Spears’s Womanizer did no favours to either party.
The crowd were more receptive to the hits. Sound Of The Underground, Something Kinda Ooooh and Biology remain glittering pop of the highest order. Like five strangely alluring Captain Scarlets, Girls Aloud are indestructible. Nothing, hopefully, can stop them.
Girls Aloud play the O2 Arena on 23 and 24 May and Wembley Arena 26 and 27 May (0870 4000 700).
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
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This concert was a present for my daughters ninth birthday, would love to say it was good but unfortunately never got to see it. The music was so loud it made my daughter physically sick she was shaking, sweating and couldn't cope so we spent the entire concert in the medical room. It was far too loud and not suitable for their catchment audience which is mainly young girls. I am utterly dissgusted that i wasted £80 and a round trip of three hours to miss this. As we were leaving (early) we saw several parents taking their children home all who looked totally distressed. Girls aloud should be ashamed of themselves.
- Nikkihosford, camberleyengland
i think this si a case of 'the emperors new clothes' - for gods sake these are five untalented women who really cannot dance, and only one (nadine), can actually sing a proper note. put against talented girlgroups such as the now defunct destiny's child (who could sing and dance at the same time without the aid of backing)they are a joke. But it seems we must applaud groups who indeed cannot sing or dance. Thats why the british music industry is a bit of a joke then - i always wondered
- Kh, London UK
All this "trying harder" lark must really be cheesing Ashley off. He even got himself booked last week (he misses a jolly jaunt to Barcelona with the lads) to spend more reformatory time with his missus.
- Charlie, Nr. Crackpot, North Yorkshire
As a grandfather; Let me tell you this; all the females in my family fromthe youngest three year old granddaughter to Granny herself, and their are a lot of girls in my family; love Girls Aloud; and have been to their concerts as well etc.
They all agree the Spice girls were nothing compared to them.
OK I admit it; I like Cheryl myself; I am old yes; but I am not blind yet.
- Mickyinlondon, london
