The anticipation alone is astonishing.Grown-ups, some of them with jobs and children, are giggling and barging their way through the crowds hastily trying to get to their seats lest they miss anything. Others are busy buying baby-pink cowboy hats for a tenner a go. Outside we keep our tickets firmly in our pockets for fear that we might be wrestled to the ground for them by a passing tout. This is, after all, the first of Madonna's UK dates that sold out within minutes of being announced.

Inside, the crowd are screaming themselves silly even though the stage is still in darkness. When the Queen of Pop finally arrives they look ready to pass out. Even to the most neutral of onlookers, the sight of Madonna in the flesh can only send shock waves through the system. The fact that she's real, and not just a fantasy figure created for the express purpose of selling magazines and boosting the careers of fashion designers, comes as something of a shock. But there she is, standing at the back of the stage in a Gaultier- designed punk outfit and glistening with real- life sweat. A moving platform propels her slowly, teasingly forwards and 18,000 people simultaneously crane their necks to get a better look.

Madonna stares unsmilingly out from under her hair as she launches into "Drowned World". Her voice is clear and strong and her presence is great enough to touch all four walls of this vast auditorium. The dancers, careful not to crease their mohicans, wriggle around on the floor with a set of bouncy funnels, the likes of which haven't been seen since Crackerjack. Platforms rise and fall, the ground swallows people up and video screens flash familiar images of Our Lady through the ages. In other words, it's all as you'd expect - expertly orchestrated, extravagant and theatrical to a fault.

If this event proves anything, it's that behind the stylists, trainers and svengalis lies an intuitive performer. You might even say - whisper it - that she's talented. With barely one live show in seven years (November's Brixton gig doesn't count - it didn't even last half an hour) Madonna would be forgiven for being a little rusty, but tonight's show sees her doing what comes naturally. Certainly, the ease and grace with which she flings herself backwards off a platform into the arms of her minions suggests that those years at dance school weren't entirely wasted.

The show is built mostly around her last two albums, Ray of Light and Music, a wise choice given that they're her most accomplished records. But her fans, myself among them, would have gladly sold a kidney to hear old hits such as "Vogue" and "Like A Prayer". Not that anyone's complaining. For pure nostalgia, "Holiday" is the best song of the night, not least because our heroine finally breaks into a smile and skips across the stage clicking her fingers. Now there's a Madonna move not seen since about 1985. In contrast, "La Isla Bonita" is given an adult makeover, accompanied by two acoustic guitars and a castanet-wielding Spanish dancer. Oh well.

Aside from the odd swear word, there is none of the controversy that has characterised earlier tours. No crucifixes, no pointy bras and little in the way of self-gratification, or at least not in the sexual sense. Instead we get Madonna the Geisha Girl in a striking red and black kimono, closely followed by Madonna the Samurai warrior, sweeping through the air with the help of a fly rig, and taking out her dancers with a series of balletic high-kicks. You fear that she might have lost the plot when she stands alone under the spotlight and slushily dedicates "I Deserve It" to her husband, Guy Ritchie, except that it's actually rather touching. She seems almost, well, human.

Ritchie's taste for East End thuggery has certainly rubbed off on the missus. One video backdrop bears a grainy close-up of her face, all bruised and bloody. During the Samurai segment she grabs one of her dancers by the head, and cackling triumphantly, breaks his neck. All in a night's work, I suppose.

Finally we are presented with Madonna, the rhinestone cowgirl. A huge cheer erupts as she shuffles salaciously from side to side and slaps her thighs to "Don't Tell Me". For the umpteenth time, we wish we were her - the cult of Madonna lives on.

All in all a triumph then, aside from the odd baffling interlude, such as when she emerges with a guitar for "Candy Perfume Girl". Courtney Love she ain't and Madonna looks about as comfortable as if she had just been handed a chainsaw and told to get to work on a pile of logs. At the end she shoves the guitar aside and shouts "God save the Queen!" in a curious attempt at a cockney accent. The crowd look at their feet. Well, you can't be cool all the time, can you?