Within moments of watching the mega-voice in action, it’s clear she is also an uproarious host, MC and comic. It’s hard to imagine anyone doing this better (especially Alan Carr …)
An Audience With …, the long-running ITV format that matches a star with a celebrity-heavy crowd, has lain dormant for a decade, ever since Barry Manilow serenaded guests including Gino D’Acampo, Stacey Solomon and Bruno Tonioli back in 2011. Only a great cultural event could be worthy of the show’s resurrection – and obviously, a new Adele album qualifies. Apparently, the musician is one of the programme’s most ardent fans, and her presence has certainly elevated the guest-list since the last iteration: the congregation here includes Emma Watson, Gareth Southgate, Samuel L Jackson, Bryan Cranston, Dua Lipa, Dawn French and many more.
What becomes very clear very quickly is that this is the ideal vehicle for Adele. The musician is known as the mega-voice behind a raft of glacial, tear-jerking torch songs. She’s also known as a chronically no-nonsense, compulsively self-deprecating Londoner with a great sense of humour. This programme requires both. It needs a blockbuster musician, but also a consummate entertainer: a raconteur, an MC, a comedian, a natural host. Tonight Adele proves she can fulfil all those roles with her eyes closed – she is ridiculously quick-witted and radiates relatability (see: her revelation that beneath her glitzy black dress her tights are becoming “baggy in the crotch”). What could have been contrived and navel-gazing feels, in Adele’s hands, authentic, down-to-earth and heartwarming. She is a master at deflecting praise and allergic to self-seriousness. In other words, she’s very good at being British.
