Christine and the Queens
Usher Hall, Edinburgh
Four stars
Well, this was fun. A reminder that pop music, at its best, is progressive, otherworldly and just plain other. Oh, and that it should make you want to dance.
Heloise Letissier, aka Christine, aka, in her latest incarnation, Chris, is the tomboyish French singer who is channelling the Jacksons (at points in tonight’s show she breaks into Janet’s Nasty and Michael’s Man in the Mirror) and reframing it as queer – or at least gender-fluid – theatre.
Accompanied by an on-point band, six smartly drilled dancers and the odd special effect (a snow shower of all things), the singer enthralled a packed Usher Hall on Saturday night. She even got the audience to join her in singing the chorus of a song. In French. That’s how in control she was.
Dressed in a billowing red shirt, a black sports bra and showing off her gym-toned physique, she was the smallest person onstage but the biggest personality. Her voice is a lovely, supple thing; her stage persona comically kooky.
Over the course of 100 minutes she toyed with French chanson and even trip hop on What’s Her Face (which on this evidence would not have sounded out of place on a Massive Attack album).
But her default sound is polished, slinky, contemporary pop, given an extra kick by crisp choreography that is mostly pop video ready, but now and again pushes further. At one point Letissier stands at the back of the stage, shirt off, facing away from the audience, rippling her whole body in slow motion. The result is hypnotic. And a reminder that no matter how busy the stage, she is the show
Any cavils? Minor ones at most. Perhaps now and again the dancing was more enthusiastic than expressive. But that’s nit-picking
Right now Letissier needs a knock-it-out-of-the-park hit single to take things to the next level. But in the meantime this was still a thrilling expression of stagecraft and the power of pop music. Encore.
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