More about: Kylie Minogue

There’s something almost innocent about Kylie Minogue’s suggestive schtick. Perhaps it’s because it was just a few weeks ago that I saw Madonna re-enacting the Last Supper while one of her dancers mimed giving her cunnilingus, or perhaps it’s because she’s flanked by a youth choir dressed as Christmas puddings, but tonight, Minogue’s sultry baby voice and playful euphemisms feel joyously, unapologetically old-fashioned.

It’s exactly what her fans expect though – and, make no mistake, Kylie’s is a dedicated and adoring fan base. The Santa hats left on every chair in the Royal Albert Hall serve as a reminder of tonight’s purpose - to celebrate her new Christmas album (which was dismissed as “hellish, bizarre crimes against festive cheer” by The Guardian), but Kylie placates fan’s enthusiasm with a sprinkling of her own classics.

It’s a tricky balance to negotiate – manoeuvring between ‘Every Day’s Like Christmas’ to ‘Wow’ to ‘Winter Wonderland’ – but, for the most part, she gets it right. She even seems to have planned ahead for the show’s inevitable lulls; just as the crowd begin to slump back into their seats during the plodding ‘Every Day’s Like Christmas’, the opening “La la la” of ‘Can’t Get You Out Of My Head’ causes them to leap back up. When the trickle of people sneaking out to get drinks threatens to become a flood, Kylie brings out Chrissie Hynde to perform The Pretenders’ ‘2000 Miles’ with her. Later, she brings out her sister Dannii for ‘100 Degrees’, and the deafening, rapturous response leads me to wonder if there’s an inside joke I’m missing.

The Christmas theme, tonight, is laboured to within an inch of its snowflake-covered, Christmas tree-adorned life. Kylie dons sexed-up versions (sexed-up, that is, with the aforementioned side-helping of tameness) of every Christmas outfit under the sun. At one point, just for the sheer campness of it all, she turns up in a golden ball gown.

There’s nothing particularly envelope-pushing about Kylie’s Christmas album, and tonight’s show echoes that. But to complain about a show in which one of the world’s most cherished popstars unleashes a flurry of fake snow onto the crowd, leads an atonal singalong of ‘The 12 Days Of Christmas’ and flits between ‘Santy Baby’ and ‘Locomotion’ without skipping a beat, would be a little – well – Scrooge-like.

More about: Kylie Minogue