Mother’s Day 2026 brought excited teenagers and twentysomethings to O2 Victoria Warehouse for Audrey Hobert. The ironic club synths of Charli xcx’s ‘Von dutch’ sent a crowd of people too young to get into a club crazy, as they awaited Hobert, an artist who writes about staying in. Cheers abound as the band arrive on the stage, before Hobert, a self-ascribed clown, appears on stilts, lagging behind, and strumming a banjo to opening track ‘I like to touch people’.
Hobert’s debut album Who’s the Clown? was released in August 2025, following the success of her first single ‘Sue me’. A vroom escalating into the noises of a car crash (“shit”) brings the crowd into ‘Drive’ and, freed from the spotlight and her stilts, gives the first real taste of Hobert’s captivating showmanship, her personality shining through the performance as she dances up and down the stage like she’s alone in front of a mirror.
Another costume change sees Hobert going three for three as she moves from a trench coat into a black dress, and takes what should be a breather to tell the audience “this is so fun for me” – revealing that Victoria Warehouse’s 3,500 capacity holds her biggest ever crowd. She assures that this doesn’t phase her: “I like it this way. I like big crowds and I like you Manchester.” This triggers the crowd to erupt, likely feeling honoured to be a part of this milestone in the early stages of her career or laughing at her American pronunciation of “Manchester”.
With a grey beret now placed on her head, she moves on to ‘Wet Hair’, a track which also plays host to one of her four self-directed and edited music videos. Filmed primarily at home, it contributes to the approachable, DIY bedroom-pop character she embodies. “Wait, wait, wait”, she interrupts herself to tell a story about being rated a three out of ten by boys in middle school with such candidness that you almost forget it’s a scripted part of the show.
‘Sex and the city’ opens with Hobert at a noughties-esque desk, Hobert stamping as she taps her computer. There is a scream for “he’s an artist” during the bridge, one of many lyrics that resonates with her audience. One of the clear draws of Hobert’s music is her ability to describe shared experiences with vivid specificity, something reflected on ‘Phoebe’, offered to anyone who has ever felt “less than, physically”. The song is named after the “quirky” character from American sitcom Friends, and its appeal is not just to who she’s just mentioned, but to anyone who has used media to escape from the reality of their own life, as she talks about going home from a party to Joey, and the heartbreak of him not holding her once the show is over.
The intro of ‘Chateau’ ramps the audience up, the crowd alone singing “oh I get it it’s to look cool”, followed by Hobert’s repeated mantra of “I don’t care”: a rejection the vanity and performance of the world of celebrity that nurtured her. Hobert has been surrounded by celebrity since long before she was an established artist, and was initially known as American sitcom writer Tim Hobert’s daughter, Malcolm Todd’s sister, or as a friend of Gracie Abrams.. From the front few rows, some (Mother’s Day?) flowers are cast onto the stage, landing somewhere near Hobert’s feet and signalling the end of the show. The slightly terrifying giggle of a clown rings through the venue.
When Hobert returns, she is flooded by pink light, tambourine in hand and a beige coat on. She kicks her way through ‘Silver Jubilee’, admitting that she doesn’t really party: a subtle foreshadowing that it’s almost time for the show to be over. For the last song, Hobert requests that everyone puts their phones down (most do) for another rendition of ‘Sue me’.
Audrey Hobert’s homebody persona turns out to be very real: she kept her set short, snappy and over by 9.30pm. On her first solo tour, fifty minutes doesn’t feel like a bad thing, every second of Hobert’s show compelling and high-energy. Whilst the honesty and self-assured awkwardness of her music doesn’t seem to entirely give the audience the freedom to join her in dancing like no one’s watching, Hobert’s set builds a world where the crowd feels seen: represented clearly, in all their human oddness.
