Ariana Grande live in London: brilliant business-as-usual before the singer takes a break from the spotlight

After 20,000 Ariana Grande fans fill up the O2 arena, so does the singer’s sparkling soprano – time and time again. During her mid-set rendition of ‘Break Free’, her club-ready collaboration with DJ-producer Zedd, the singer delivers a vocal run so stunning that it even smooths over the infamous grammatical inaccuracy in the lyrics: “Now that I’ve become who I really are“. It’s a reminder that Grande, now a relative veteran of eight studio albums and an Oscar nominee for Wicked, is one of her generation’s most gifted vocalists. READ MORE: Ariana Grande – ‘Petal’ review: conflicted pop songs under the spotlight But Grande’s opening show in London on Saturday (August 15), the first in a 10-night residency that will wrap up her ‘Eternal Sunshine Tour’, is more than a vocal showcase. It’s also a dazzling expansion of the surreal, memory-erasing world from Grande’s 2025 short film Brighter Days Ahead, a companion piece to the singer’s spacey breakup album ‘Eternal Sunshine’, released a year earlier. The main stage is dominated by a giant house that becomes more decrepit and overgrown with flowers as the show goes on; if it’s haunted, the spectres are painful memories from the past. And ...