To criticise a performer for making too much effort seems absurd, yet Mika's surfeit of ideas and eagerness to impress overshadowed the songs in his Apollo show. A blast of Dolly Parton's 9 to 5 almost introduced him - the curtain dropped, the crowd cheered, but in place of the singer was a giant blue balloon. This popped, to reveal a dancer in gold lamé and angel wings. Then the music switched to swooshy electro - and Mika skipped through bunches of carnations to a stage bathed in purple light.

The concert finally got going with Relax, Take it Easy, the 25-year-old's first single, delivered in a familiar falsetto that, live, sounded like a cross between Jimmy Somerville and one of the Tweenies. The venue was packed with parents whose offspring either bounced at waist height or sat on their shoulders. Most fans chose to clap their hands above their heads and the songs hurtled by on a sugar-high that gave the gig the feel of a kids' birthday party. What was fun at first soon became exhausting just to watch.

Mika's energy, however, never flagged. Only his silver shoes and leggings with shimmery stripes lasted the night - on half-a-dozen occasions he nipped behind the drum kit to switch shirt or jacket. He hurtled from one side of the stage to the other, pogoed and danced with a backing singer in a glittery dress, or members of his four-piece band (all clad in clashing neon tops).

On Big Girl (You are Beautiful) an enormous blow-up doll in a blue leotard was suddenly inflated, while two real-life fat girls in less forgiving leotards came on to jiggle their bodies and - yikes! - cartwheel. Rarely did the music have more substance than a fizzy backing track. Billy Brown was Abba-meets-Eighties Billy Joel, Stuck in the Middle was B-list Bee Gees with Mika on piano and the new song How Much Do You Love Me was a so-so stab at Kylie disco-lite. A cover of the Eurythmics' Missionary Man - a duet with a female rapper in a bikini and feather headdress atop a polystyrene “M” - lacked the original's bite.

Only Love Today found a firm middle ground between Mika the musician and Mika the camp showman. Rather than pander to Eurotrash parties, the song set its sight on Ibizan dancefloors. Mika, meanwhile, took to percussion drums - one looked like an oil drum on its side - for a genuinely thrilling finale.

This, though, was a paddling pool of a show - lots of surface, little depth.

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