As her unexpected recent success in the US proves, Kylie Minogue has never been taken more seriously. Reviewers ignored her self-conscious attempts at gravity during her mid-1990s indie makeover, then fell over themselves garlanding Fever, an album packed with precisely the sort of sparkly production-line pop that normally brings on an attack of the critical vapours. Now the US, a country hardly suffering a dearth of blonde pop moppets, has fallen under her spell.
The Fever show reflects the new seriousness with which Minogue is regarded. Costume designers Dolce & Gabbana have dubbed Minogue "the quintessence of the contemporary artist", a sentiment even Fever's most vocal adherent might think is gilding the lily a bit. The sets purport to be influenced by A Clockwork Orange and David Bowie's Diamond Dogs tour; the centrepiece of Bowie's 1974 shows, however, was an enormous hydraulic blood-spurting penis - presumably an influence too far for Minogue's designers.
In the event, the show is less Stanley Kubrick than Dino De Laurentiis. Visions of urban dystopia are secondary to the serious business of revealing Minogue's buttocks (according to tabloid legend, insured for £3m) in a series of spangly outfits. The literary and cinematic allusions are less sophisticated than the special effects. There are blasts of synthesised Beethoven between songs, but the audience are more impressed by the giant inflatable letter K on the stage.
Quite right, too. Strip away the pretentious babble and there is a slick, tightly choreographed and highly entertaining spectacle. Minogue is not the world's most characterful performer - she has two on-stage modes, big grin and simper - but it hardly matters in a show that features fluorescent tap-dancing Jedi knights, muscular male dancers in high heels and suspenders, and a man walking down some stairs on his hands.
Old hits are updated in keeping with Fever's adoption of vogueish dance-floor styles. I Should Be So Lucky becomes booming progressive house, while Locomotion sounds peculiar as slinky trip hop. Like Robbie Williams, Minogue keeps the audience interested in album tracks by making reference to other songs, including Donna Summer's I Feel Love. But it's during the finale, when the audience sings along to Can't Get You Out of My Head, that the show reveals its true colours. On the overhead screens, the lyrics appear, along with a bouncing ball. Whatever Dolce and Gabbana might think, this is not an artist at the cutting edge, but shameless end-of-the-pier stuff, done to perfection.
· Kylie Minogue is at the Manchester Evening News Arena (0161-930 8000) tomorrow until Saturday, then tours.
