Review: Lily Allen kicks off ‘West End Girl’ North American tour in Chicago

Lily Allen brought the receipts.

It was one of the most provocative and devastating parts of her “West End Girl” concert adaptation at The Auditorium in the Loop on Friday night. As the singer finds proof of her husband’s infidelities, she nearly suffocates herself with a sheet pulled over her head that’s imprinted with lyrics and a mile-long sales record of items he has bought for other women.

“What a sad, sad man,” she sings, noting the drinks at bars and bags at Bergdorf Goodman he’s carelessly gifted away.

With that one powerful act, Allen touched on the deep throb of heartbreak with a realism that audience members have not seen before. At least not in a concert. But no pop star has interpreted their album in such an expressive and unique way before, either. Rather than a traditional concert, Allen masterfully crafted a theatrical one-woman show where the song lyrics are the script and the feelings once poured out in the studio parlay into stage drama.

Chicago got the North American debut of “Lily Allen Performs West End Girl,” already lauded for its previous run in her native UK and has been extended into the fall, including a secondary stop at United Center in September. Though how she’ll bring this intimacy to an arena is a wonder.

The show’s run time is barely an hour and the setlist is a full, in-order play of her latest album, her first in seven years. There is no in-between song banter or breaking of the fourth wall. There is no “Smile” or “LDN” or any of the other spitfire tracks she came up on in the mid-2000s. That gap was filled by the opening act, the Dallas Minor Trio, a three-piece string quartet that interpreted Allen’s catalog as instrumental pieces while lyrics were displayed on screens, leading to classical karaoke.

By checking that box, the rest of the night allowed Allen to give life and meaning to “West End Girl.” Written in just 10 days at the end of 2024, the retro-soul catchall is a conceptual, semi-autobiographical account largely believed to be about the dissolution of her marriage to “Stranger Things” actor David Harbour.

The album itself is a gripping play-by-play of the nuptial breakdown, a series of events that starts with the husband asking for an open marriage to the wife finding sex toy collateral and hearing from the other woman, “Madeline.” But the theatrical interpretation is an even more intimate and voyeuristic attempt at art imitating life, allowing viewers to sit with the pain alongside Allen.

All of it plays out within a compacted box stage that mirrors the bones of a house where these situations would normally be kept behind closed doors.

The night opens with the title track as Allen, wearing a two-piece pink tweed suit, details moving to a new city (in real life, settling with Harbour in Brooklyn) and being excited about getting the lead in a play (in real life, “2:22 A Ghost Story”) only to be discredited by her partner for not auditioning for it.

As the rest of the album plays out, we see Allen go through every room of the house, restless and stripping down layers of clothing in tandem with how exposed she’s becoming. Before “Relapse,” she’s taking a drink out of the fridge while worried she can fall back into her addictions and “lose it all.” By “4chan Stan,” she finds the evidence of a messy bed and sex toys and wonders if it’s her husband who’s the addict.

“F---David Harbour!” someone abruptly screamed out in the audience, eliciting cheers from the crowd. Others came dressed in nun costumes (an homage to a recent music video) or held their lit phones up on songs like “Just Enough” and “Let You Win” to support the star as the narrative started to change. As Allen introduces her “Dallas Major” alter ego, she talks about getting on dating apps again and clears out the house behind her to begin anew.

In real life, the singer is doing just fine. She’s dating a descendant of Sigmund Freud (a bit ironic after all this psychoanalysis) and has made one of the best comeback albums of the decade with a sold-out tour to match. There are even talks of “West End Girl” becoming an actual theatrical production.

While messy breakups, unrequited love and deep betrayal have been the bedrock of music for centuries, with “West End Girl,” Allen has made it feel fresh, just like the sting of a first love. She’s turned pain into something beautiful.

Lily Allen set list for April 3, 2026 show at Auditorium

West End Girl
Ruminating
Sleepwalking
Tennis
Madeline
Relapse
P ---- Palace
4chan Stan
Nonmonogamummy
Just Enough
Dallas Major
Beg for Me
Let You WIn
Fruityloop