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Reunions, karaoke and every celeb ever: the must-see moments from ‘An Audience With Adele’


By Sarah Finnan
22nd Nov 2021
Reunions, karaoke and every celeb ever: the must-see moments from ‘An Audience With Adele’

An A-list guest list, teary reunions and a spot of karaoke from Alan Carr – ‘An Audience With Adele’ really had it all.

ITV’s An Audience With Adele just confirmed what we already knew to be true; she’s a hoot and a half. Not only does she have the voice of an angel, but she’s a pretty talented stand up comedian too… though it doesn’t seem that she was even trying that hard and the jokes just came naturally to the gifted performer. What we’d give to be mates with Adele. 

Doesn’t look like she really needs new friends though, at least judging by the event’s guestlist anway. I mean just about anyone you can think of was there from Michael McIntyre to Dua Lipa, Emma Watson, Jodie Comer, Dawn French, Dermot O’Leary, Bryan Cranston, Samuel L Jackson and Idris Elba – hers was about as star studded an audience as you can get. Was she nervous? Only a little bit, though she hid it well…

Performing several of her best-known hits for the sea of adoring fans (which extended far beyond the venue’s theatre and was broadcast on TVs all across Ireland and the UK), Adele interspersed the musical soundbites with questions from guests. And as expected, the whole thing was thoroughly entertaining. 

Here’s what you missed if you didn’t manage to catch it on the telly box last night. 

Adele was reunited with her old English teacher

Just when we thought that our tear ducts had run dry, Adele had us reaching for the tissues once again. Arguably the most emotional moment of the whole night, it was all carefully orchestrated by Emma Thompson who asked Adele if there was anyone who really supported and inspired her when she was younger. 

“Yeah, I had a teacher at Chestnut Grove who taught me English,” Adele replied. “That was Miss McDonald.” The two never kept in touch though as Miss McDonald left when Adele was still only in year eight. “It was just one year, but she was, like, she got me really into literature. Like, I’ve always been obsessed with English and, obviously, now I write lyrics.” Miss McDonald wasn’t a normal teacher though, she was a cool teacher and would often organise street dances in the canteen. Adele was “too scared” to partake she admitted, but she often thinks of her. 

Cue Miss McDonald coming up on stage and the two sharing a very teary embrace. Adele cried, Dua Lipa cried, I cried. It was a lot. People who are obsessed with their English teachers are always good people as our Beauty Editor, Holly O’Neill, pointed out. Case in point here. 

Alan Carr proved he’s a friend indeed

Needing a moment to compose herself after seeing her old teacher for the first time since she was 12, Adele enlisted the help of good pal Alan Carr to take some of the pressure off while she got her makeup touched up. And he obliged without the slightest hesitation. “Oh, Alan do you want to come talk for five minutes while I fixes me face?” Adele asked before adding, “no, for real!” 

She needn’t have worried though for Carr was up out of his seat before she had even stopped talking and marched up to join her on stage and perform his own version of Make You Feel My Love. Initially, terror-stricken at the prospect of doing karaoke in front of so (so!) many famous people, Carr leaned into it very quickly and was soon serenading the whole crowd as though it were always part of the plan. “Thank you so much, this goes out to all the lovers,” he joked before diving right in. His version was quite different to the original and that’s all we’ll say. 

Emma Thompson had a boogie 

No one, and I mean, NO ONE, had a better time at the event than Emma Thompson. This was her night out and she was going to enjoy it by hell or high water. Try and tell Emma Thompson that “you can’t dance to an Adele song”. She’ll prove you otherwise. As she did many of her fellow attendees and could be seen ushering them up out of their seats to join her in busting a move. Serious main character energy from her and just further proof that Alan Rickman should have given his brilliant wife that bloody necklace in Love Actually.  

Stormzy fangirled over Adele

“I was super awkward when I met you,” Stormzy admitted to Adele. To that she revealed that they’re actually “super close” and “had a real moment with the ocean and God last summer. We felt a presence around us and said ‘let’s go get life’”, she told viewers.

In fact, their friendship has been quite well documented over the years and Adele previously said that she really admired the rapper for his vulnerability. “I love how open he’s been about his mental health the entire time,” she once said in an interview. “I don’t think many people were doing that when he first came out.”

“Is there anyone more inherently wholesome than Stormzy?” one Twitter user asked. I don’t think there is. 

Adele threw some shade 

It wouldn’t be an evening (or should I say audience) with Adele if there wasn’t at least a little shade being thrown. “Obviously, famously you write songs about your exes,” Alan Carr pointed out. “If your exes wrote a song about you, what would it be called and what would it sound like. We want to know everything,” he laughed. 

Proving that nothing can phase her, Adele wasted no time in quipping that it would probably be called “no one like you”. She could have left it there, but she didn’t and the singer then added, “I can’t imagine any of them would ever really be able to do it because most of them couldn’t even do, like, a normal daily task… most of them, not all of them.”

She may be the queen of heartbreak, but she’s the queen of sass too.