First night of Lady Gaga in her UK tour at Manchester last night was a Kick Start.  With critics praiseing her show as “weirdly wonderful”.

The singer played a storming set as part of her Monster Ball tour, which featured a 40-foot animatronics sea monster, 15 costume changes and a piano set on fire on stage. The Independent crowned her the “Queen of Pop” saying: “It is a brave artist that trashes her stage show between legs of her first arena tour, but Lady Gaga is nothing if not a perfectionist and her gamble just about pays off on the first date of this European run.”

“Gaga herself is on imperious form, displaying a powerful singing voice not readily apparent on the album. She is full-throated on the pumping anthems with an underlay of Big Apple grit.”

Lady Gaga started off the show at Manchester Evening News Arena 40 minutes late, kicking off with her Brits song Dance in the Dark and delighted the crowd with renditions of Just Dance, Love Game and Speechless.

The BBC hailed her extravagent set pieces saying: “It was a hugely ambitious, terrifyingly loud show, spread over four acts and held together by a flimsy “narrative” about Gaga and her dancer friends trying to get to a party.”

“The expectations for this, her first headline tour in the UK, were up there with Madonna – who has been doing it for 25 years but who, since Tuesday, has one less Brit award.”

“That Gaga’s grand, dynamic show lived up to that challenge was testament to her vision and ambition – but surely it must be bankrupting her?”

The spectacle was put together in just four weeks after Gaga ditched the show she had been using back in the US after she “got very bored” of it.

The Guardian praised it as “weirdly wonderful” and applauded Gaga for offering “something noticeably edgier than your average pop stadium show”.

“Lady Gaga might actually be that rarest of things: a pop star who encourages the audience to take risks, invites their fans not merely to listen to their music and buy their records, but enter into a kind of alternate world.”