WEMBLEY LIPA FAITH

It's hard to believe that pop star Dua Lipa's onstage prowess was ever the subject of online ridicule, writes Ellie Muir

- Ellie Muir

Dua Lipa isn't exactly known for being a mind-blowing performer. Clips of her early performances have been memeified online ad nauseam, with one in particular, of the singer on stage, woodenly rotating her right hip, doing the rounds back in 2018.

"Go on girl, give us nothing," read one viral comment at the time. The meme, which Lipa has since said was hurtful and humiliating, suggested the pop star with heaps of hits didn't have the performance prowess to match.

How things have changed. On Friday, at her Wembley Stadium debut, a more apt comment might be: "Go girl, give us absolutely everything!". The 29-year-old, who is seven months into her Radical Optimism tour in promotion of her electro-inflected third album, emerges atop an S-shaped bridge, her stage presence irrefutable as she commands the crowd into silence with a single swish of her hair. For the opening track "Training Season", Lipa's Abba-inflected wish list of qualities in a romantic partner, the singer wears a diamanté-encrusted leotard as she struts down the catwalk. A gaggle of topless male dancers trails behind reverently like a colony of bees surrounding their queen. Watch that 2018 clip now and marvel at the metamorphosis.