Madonna has resumed her Madame X world tour in London, after cancelling dates in Portugal and the UK due to injury.
The star took to the stage wearing knee supports but otherwise refused to make concessions to the “indescribable” pain she has recently been experiencing.
She performed high kicks, yoga poses and even the splits during a highly-polished, two-and-a-half-hour show.
And she told fans she was “happy to have made it” to the Palladium after scrapping her first UK show on Monday.
“How could I not do a show in London?” she added.
‘Intervention’
The Palladium seats just 2,286 people – which made Wednesday night’s show Madonna’s smallest-ever full-length concert in the UK; and her first time on the West End since appearing in David Williamson’s Up for Grabs in 2002.
It provided a chance, she said, for a more “intimate and thrilling” artistic experience.
As a result, the audience were required to store mobile phones in sealed pouches as “an intervention for us all”. However, Madonna admitted that even she was getting anxious without a phone nearby.
“I’m having little panic attacks,” she joked. “I’m like, ‘Why is no-one taking my picture?'”
