Anne-Marie is ready for bed. Two songs into her set, she slips off her bovver boots and climbs on to a Princess and the Pea-esque mattress tower that has been wheeled into place by dancers pulling double duty as stagehands. She will stay there for the next four tracks, teeing up an unusual spectacle that blurs the line between pop show and musical theatre.
Recalling a teenage sanctuary, the ambitious staging reflects a core theme from the Essex singer’s third album Unhealthy, a collection of songs about self-acceptance and embracing childlike mayhem and wonder in adult life. “I go from chaos into self-control, it’s one of my side effects,” she sings during Cuckoo, her dancers mimicking hand movements that have been beamed into the present from somewhere in her adolescence.
Each word is yelled back by a young, boisterous crowd – every other head wears a light-up tiara – but there is quiet as Anne-Marie performs most of Perfect to Me with her back to the room, addressing herself in a mirror. Moments later, she crouches at the back of the stage in darkness, singing You & I during an extended dance sequence while the bedroom set is struck.
Here, it becomes apparent that there is a tipping point between commitment to the bit and the feeling that Anne-Marie the pop star is being sacrificed at the altar of a bigger idea, which is a shame because she’s quite a good pop star. There is a surge of excitement whenever she slips into choreography alongside her dancers, for Unhealthy’s country stomp or Rockabye’s trop-house throwback, that isn’t there while she lounges at a cafe table, or on a swing garlanded with flowers.
The absence of live musicians – everything is performed to tape – exacerbates the disconnect. Haunt You’s rumbling guitars cry out for blood-and-guts power chords that never arrive and, while it’s fun in a West End sense to see the chorus become a horse and carriage using their bodies and a couple of umbrellas, it’s nothing compared to witnessing songs come alive between a singer and their band.
