Who’s That Girl (1987)

Madonna’s first world tour – which began in July 1987 in Japan and finished in Italy in September – marked her first large-scale concert appearances in the UK.

Tickets for her first two dates at Wembley Stadium sold out in 18 hours and led to a third concert being arranged.

Britain was gripped by Madonna fever. Fans mobbed her at the airport, while a jog in the park ended with a bodyguard assaulting a photographer.

More than 70,000 people attended the first concert, which led to five people being taken to hospital and the singer appealing for calm.

The show began with Madonna clad in the gold-nippled, black velvet corset she wore in her raunchy Open Your Heart video.

Subsequent outfits included a crimson flamenco dress and a luridly kitsch gown topped off with some horn-rimmed, Dame Edna Everage-style glasses.

Blond Ambition (1990)

Immortalised in the documentary film In Bed With Madonna, this is the concert that everyone remembers.

This, after all, was the tour that introduced Jean-Paul Gaultier’s infamous conical bra outfit and featured the singer simulating masturbation during Like a Virgin.

Officials in Toronto threatened to arrest her unless she removed this sequence, and in Italy the Pope called for a boycott.

In London, meanwhile, her use of expletives during a live BBC Radio One broadcast from Wembley Stadium provoked a storm of protest.

The moralistic British press had a field day, though most reviewers grudgingly acknowledged the singer’s professionalism and charisma.

“Madonna effortlessly discharges enough light, sound, fury and energy to power the whole of Wembley,” wrote Anthony Thorncroft in the Financial Times.

The Girlie Show (1993)

Madonna chose London as the starting point for her 1993 tour, her most explicit and controversial to date.

Coming off the back of her Erotica album, her critically-panned film Body of Evidence and her infamous ‘Sex’ book of photographs, The Girlie Show showed the singer at her most confrontational.

Madonna opened the show dressed as a whip-cracking dominatrix, surrounded by topless dancers of both sexes.

But there were lighter moments too – singing Like a Virgin in the guise of Marlene Dietrich, for example, or donning an Afro wig for Express Yourself.

Controversy followed the pop star around the globe. She caused uproar in Puerto Rico by rubbing the island’s flag between her legs on stage, while Orthodox Jews protested against her first ever show in Israel.

The critics were predictably sniffy. “It’s tough to stay on top by spanking somebody’s bottom,” wrote Time magazine’s Richard Corliss.

Drowned World (2001)

After a hiatus of eight years – during which time she made the musical Evita, had two children and married film director Guy Ritchie – Madonna returned to the UK with a bang.

Her six nights at London’s Earls Court sold out on the first day seats went on sale, with £85 tickets changing hands for up to £600.

Madonna’s many costumes included a punkish tartan kilt and a geisha’s gown in a concert that saw her fly through the air on wires and ride a mechanical bull.

She also revealed a hitherto undisclosed talent for the guitar and dedicated one song to her new husband.

Some critics complained that the show concentrated on material from her most recent albums, but generally the response was favourable.

“With its perfect dance routines, special effects and hint of bullish arrogance, the Drowned World show befits the world’s most famous woman,” wrote Alex Patridis in The Guardian.

Source: BBC Online