Slipping into her London hotel she cuts a diminutive figure: the phalanx of man-mountain bodyguards surrounding the blonde, pig-tailed popstar only serve to make 5ft 4in Madonna look even tinier.
But when she takes to the stage at the O2 tonight for the opening show of her 78-date international Celebration Tour, she hopes the audience will witness the denouement of her extraordinary four-decades-long career and a thundering expression of her cultural power.
She also wants to send a sharp rebuke to Taylor Swift and Beyonce, the two women many would currently describe as the most powerful in the industry and prove that nobody — even singers with the commercial power of Tay and Bey — can hold a bejewelled candle to the original Queen of Pop.
But the question troubling insiders is, can she pull it off? A seven-month world tour would be a punishing prospect for any performer.
And Madonna — despite a pursuit of physical strength that has outlasted every one of her toyboy romances — is nevertheless 65 years old.
Madonna is seen attending her son Rocco Ritchie’s art exhibition in Mayfair on Friday
Madonna speaks onstage during the 2021 MTV Video Music Awards at Barclays Center in 2021
According to her musical director Stuart Price: ‘The person who is going to take the stage looks incredible, sounds incredible, performs incredible.’
But let’s not forget we are only a few months on from a troubling medical incident. In late June, just weeks before the tour was due to kick off in the U.S., Madonna had to be revived after she was found unresponsive at her home in New York.
Her team blamed a severe bacterial infection and the singer spent days in intensive care. She was only well enough to resume work on the show in mid-August.
I can reveal that not only has the tour been reimagined but the singer has sought inspiration from the unlikeliest of role models.
According to insiders Madonna has become ‘obsessed’ with Sir Mick Jagger, another great performing behemoth and one who, at 80, makes her look like a mere whippersnapper.
Behind the scenes, I’m told, The Rolling Stones frontman, who has appeared in more than 2,000 concerts, is cited often.
The trio of French choreographers known as La Horde, who are responsible for at least ten of the numbers in the show, say Madonna is vexed by what she sees as society’s disapproval of older women projecting a sexy image and has told them that no one directs the same criticism at octogenarian Jagger.
They say: ‘Madonna disagrees with this way of thinking and believes it comes from ageism and prejudice.
‘Female artists are frequently subjected to harsher criticism based on their age, looks and physical abilities when compared to their male counterparts.’
Another source adds: ‘She is obsessed with how older people like Mick Jagger can do it. She thinks she has found a more intelligent way of performing and talks about muscle memory and training smarter.’
The truth, of course, is that Madonna’s trademark approach to touring — pushing herself to the absolute limit — is no longer an option. Something had to give.
I’m told that Madonna was strongly advised to postpone the tour after she fell ill. One source says: ‘She was advised to rest and recuperate. I heard that she was told it would be wise to take a year out.’
Madonna spurned the advice with a hard ‘No’ but changes to the punishing schedule have been made. Those surrounding the singer have made sure there will be a medical team, including a doctor and three physiotherapists, accompanying her as she tours the globe.
According to insiders Madonna has become ‘obsessed’ with Sir Mick Jagger (pictured)
She will have up to six hours of physiotherapy a day in a mobile gym that will travel with her — three hours before a concert and three after it — to try to keep her moving.
No fewer than eight humidifiers will accompany her to every venue in all of the 15 countries the tour incorporates, in order to maintain and protect her voice. Rest days have also been factored into the timetable.
I’m told by one insider: ‘The choreography has been arranged so that she will not have to do the full dance routines. The show has been changed so that there is more going on around her.
‘It will still look like a very spectacular show but there will be chances for her to rest. It’s what they usually do with artists who cannot dance.
‘She would love to push herself to do the full routines as planned but this is not going to be possible. She will deliver a show which is more paced. Mick Jagger actually does this as well — he will move very fast and then rest for a time.’
For those surrounding her there is a constant fear she will pick up a new injury or more likely aggravate one of her existing conditions.
The source says: ‘It doesn’t matter how you train or what doctors will give you to prop you up — such as cortisone injections for the pain. On the last tour she already pushed herself to the limits and all that she proved was that she has limits.’
Who, after all, can forget the startling images of her hobbling on stage on crutches, tears streaming down her face, during her Madame X tour in 2019? Some 15 dates of that tour had to be cancelled due to ‘overwhelming’ pain.
At one point the singer said she was: ‘A broken doll held together with tape and glue. During my tour — I don’t know if you’ve noticed it, but I’m limping a lot — I was in more pain than I’ve ever been in in my life.’
The following year, in 2020, she underwent a hip replacement and in true Madonna form came back punchier than ever, declaring herself a ‘bionic woman’.
‘How do I stay in shape? It’s all in your head. It’s called will, it’s called no one’s gonna stop me, and how I stay in shape is no one’s gonna stop me. And how I stay in shape is I don’t believe in limitations.’
One source explained her thinking thus: ‘The fact is she’s a dancer, that’s what she studied at college, and dancers don’t listen to doctors. They abuse and push their bodies to the limit, that is what they do.’
Over the past few weeks Madonna has been leading her dancers in 12-hour training sessions — which have proved a challenge even for those fit and lithe young performers who could technically be her grandchildren.
As her lead dancer and close pal Loic Mabanza says: ‘She is a beast. She works out like an athlete and is never the first to tire.’
Madonna psoted a series of pictures on her Intsagram last week ahead of her much anticipated Celebration Tour
Why, though, with such a back catalogue of hits — beginning with Holiday in 1984 and including 13 number one singles such as Vogue and Like A Prayer — does she continue to drive herself, apparently to the brink of death, to get on stage again?
According to insiders, the buzzword reverberating around the training studio is ‘legacy’.
Each performance will tell the story of Madonna’s life, and each performance will be an expression of her as an artist, fighting for her own liberation and empowerment.
As to which songs will be in the show, Erotica and Frozen have been heard in the rehearsals, which moved last weekend to the AO Arena in Manchester before final run-throughs at the O2 in London.
Musical director Price says that around 25 songs will be performed in their entirety and another 20 will be included in some form.
It’s believed that Bob The Drag Queen, who is her support on the entire tour, will lipsync to some medleys while Madonna has costume changes, aided by a 25-strong wardrobe department.
The stage is the largest for any tour and its centrepiece is a layered circular area. It will allow her to tell the story of her early years in New York, where she arrived after dropping out of her degree in dance at the University of Michigan, and features Uptown, Downtown, Midtown, East and West stages.
There will be a ‘Time Machine’ on stage in the form of an illuminated portal frame, suspended 30 feet off the ground, which will allow her to whizz across the stage into the auditorium during the show.
Her team said yesterday that it will ‘symbolise looking into the past, the present and towards the future’.
More than 200 crew members are required to get the show on the road, and on stage each night will be 24 performers, all dancers and singers.
Not only that but four of her children will appear with her on stage — the ultimate sign perhaps that Madonna is throwing everything at this tour. There is a lot riding on it.
Creatively, it is going to be the ultimate statement of love for her loyal fans. In terms of image, it is also crucial she pulls it off. It will be one in the eye for those who mock her age-defying appearance and ask whether she has passed her prime.
Madonna posted a TikTok of herself in June dancing with her son David Banda
I’m told she wants especially to ‘show Beyonce how it’s done’ — and take back her crown from Queen Bey, who is also currently on tour, and was this week pictured with Taylor Swift as her ‘plus one’ at the premiere of the Shake It Off singer’s Eras Tour film.
Then there’s the matter of money. This massive global tour is set to gross over $200 million [£160 m] — plus merchandising and the associated bump in streaming and sales. It will be a huge payday for Madonna and all of her team.
For all those reasons, then, she’s found the idea of going back on the road directly after her illness impossible to resist.
As she wrote in a telling statement on Instagram in July, shortly after recovering: ‘My first thought when I woke up in the hospital was my children. My second thought was that I did not want to disappoint anyone who bought tickets for my tour.’
Her manager Guy Oseary underlined what a priority the tour was when he said: ‘At this time we will need to pause all commitments, which includes the tour. We will share more details with you as soon as we have them, including a new start date for the tour and the rescheduled shows.’
A source says: ‘At her level of fame there is a level of pressure. Such a lot rests on her being able to perform, which means that you just find someone who says that your plans are OK. You request something from a physician and you get it.’
Whether her great gamble pays off remains to be seen, and many remain sceptical. One senior music figure expressed doubts to me this week: ‘I don’t see how she can do it.’
Another added: ‘I don’t know how she can pull it off without doing herself serious harm. It’s not a question of can she do one performance, but can she do nearly 80, virtually back-to-back?
‘Her ego is such that she believes she will dance through the pain and do it anyway. She fully believes in herself as an icon. She believes that she is invincible and she believes that she is 24 years old.’
We will all know the answer in a matter of hours.
