Eilish shows an introvert's approach to pop spectacle

The charismatic star doesn't need choreography or back-up dancers in order to make a scene, writes Annabel Nugent

- Annabel Nugent

Billie Eilish has always done things a little differently.

Everything about the 23-year-old pop phenom is just a scooch off centre. The music she makes (from trap to electro-goth to bossa nova); the clothes she wears (baggy and androgynous) - it is all so unmistakeably her. Which is why it makes perfect sense that Eilish would shake up The O2 Arena tonight, bending the walls of the cavernous venue to her will as she does everything else: charts, awards shows, fashion trends. (Almost everyone is wearing some combination of a bandana, basketball shorts, and an American football jersey.)

Doing away with the usual front-facing stage, Eilish plonks her own smack-bang in the middle of the action: a figure eight with two sunken pits carved out for her four-piece band. On top, surrounded by darkness, is a giant white cube, fuzzy on all sides with the static of an idle TV. The screens drop away for a split second to reveal Eilish sitting caged within. Flash! Bang! Now she's on top of it. David Blaine, eat your heart out.