Princess of pop retains her title amid extravaganza

KYLIE MINOGUE has survived many things in her time. A career in the Australian soap, Neighbours. Worldwide fame as a Stock Aiken Waterman protegee and pop princess.

Not to mention cancer. Perhaps her greatest achievement has been to make survival look easy. At 42, she’s back with the hit album Aphrodite and a world tour whose extravagance puts many artists half her age to shame.

At the O2 in Dublin for the first of two dates, things kick off a little after 9pm. The curtains are whisked away to reveal a Grecian facade, with musicians on each side and a phalanx of dancers posing as statues on its steps. A drumbeat starts, the dancers spring into life, and then Kylie appears. On an enormous gold scallop shell, no less, much like Botticelli’s Venus. The opening track is Aphrodite, but no matter. If anyone is entitled to play fast and loose with mythology, it is surely Kylie.