Hilary Duff at the O2 Arena, review – This is actually what dreams are made of

Hilary Duff performs at the O2 Arena in London - (Getty)

To witness Hilary Duff selling out London’s O2 Arena in 2026, twice, is a bit like witnessing a flash mob on your way to work, or somebody eating a pack of 3D Doritos. What time machine have you inadvertently gained access to? What century is this? But Duff’s resurgence is as much to do with cultural nostalgia as it is the power of clean living.

An artist who has – to her credit, really – never once set foot outside her lane of soft, beachy, featherlight pop, Duff carries a spotless rap sheet and the same grinning radiance that made her a star in the first place. Duff definitely exhibited snippets of bite in her heyday (remember her funny if now quietly tragic love triangle with Aaron Carter and Lindsay Lohan, or her feud with Faye Dunaway?), but she was more or less strictly PG: the Y2K Disney queen that parents actually wanted their daughters to turn out like.