While I coined the critical phrase “Noël Coward in a leather bar” in which to describe the dry-witted, literary-worth lyricism of fellow musical Brits such as Jarvis Cocker, Jamie T and Damon Albarn in past reviews, no one has done Coward proud like Lily Allen. Blackly humorous, smartly sarcastic and Britannia ruling since 2006 debut Alright, Still, 2009’s It’s Not Me, It’s You and 2018’s No Shame—each grazed by the sweet-and-sourness of electro-pop and her thespian-cool vocal demeanor—Allen has wisely, wordily tackled addictions to drugs, drink, sex, social media, celebrity, the contradictions of human behavior and the need to be in (then out of) relationships like no one within the 21st century.
Last year’s caustic West End Girl was all that and more, a righteously angry, sniper-focused soliloquy on the foul foibles of non-monogamy and misogyny directed at a single source—cheating then-husband, actor David Harbour—that managed to look self-deprecatingly at her own disappointed compliance within that misguided marriage. Unflinching, bold and audaciously intrepid—done via a chilled mix of dauntless dance bangers, bittersweet hyperpop, vintage new-wave sounds and baleful balladry—West End Girl was one braw, triggering cocktail of shame, scandal and impenitence turned into one-woman theater.
If Tammy Wynette’s D-I-V-O-R-C-E was haughtily intoned by a clipped-Brit-singing woman in a nightgown and nude nightie, it’d be Lily Allen, now.
Allen’s West End Girl tour date at a space as grandly old-world theatrical as the Met was, then, perfect for a show staged in its barb-slinging lead actor’s apartment: chandeliers, marital bedding, pink carpeting and heavy green-velvet drapery included.
To an audience filled with young, yelling, approval-applauding women, Allen went for a cold-cheery brand of misery and spite as she strode her set’s steps, paced the length of its room and huffed into her phone, all breathing deep the sounds of “Ruminating,”“Sleepwalking” and the night’s first number, “West End Girl,” with its true talk of open marriages and nerve-jarring jealousy. (This after an opening act of three cellists sawed its way through instrumental chamber versions of past Allen hits such as “Not Fair” and “Fuck You.”)
If this was an evening of healing or cleansing for Allen and her fan-minion was probably down to the individual audience member, though, in my mind, catharsis best served biting and cold through a dozen-plus bangers does the soul good.
Without a band (she sand to a bass-booming backing track) and little shift in the dynamics of her electro-laced songs (even her vocals rarely lifted beyond their breathy clip), Allen’s emphasis was on that of her unhurried word, mad melancholy lyrics (“Pussy Palace”) and the realizations (throughout “Tennis” and “Madeline”) that the woman that Allen’s husband is fucking goes against the nature of the pair’s one-sided, agreed-upon arrangement: no one they knew, never in their home or bed.
“I can’t get my head around how you’ve been playing tennis/If it was just sex, I wouldn’t be jealous/You won’t play with me.”
Saving the best for last, and what I believe to be the night’s most pragmatic moment (even the worst romantic relationships are usually two-way streets of wrong-headedness), Allen took on the silly-sounding “Fruityloop” with calmly passionate dread.
“You’re just a little boy looking for his mummy/Things have gotten complicated, what with all the fame and money … I’m just a little girl looking for hеr daddy, Thought that we could break the cyclе/Thought that I could keep you happy/It is what it is, you’re a mess, I’m a bitch.”
However, before Lily Allen completed her magnificent moody, musical dramatic stage play—14 songs in all—complete with a bouquet of roses for her final bow, she managed to point her poison arrow in the right direction.
“It’s not me, it’s you/It’s what you’ve always done, it’s what you’ll do.”
End scene.
—A.D. Amorosi; photos by Christina Bryson
