Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Adele One Night Only’ on Paramount+, A Concert Special Marking The Singer’s Return To The Spotlight

Adele One Night Only (Paramount+) brings the British singer, songwriter, multiple Grammy winner, and seller of a kajillion albums and downloads to the hills above Los Angeles for an intimate performance of material from her upcoming fourth studio album and a handful of hits from throughout her career. In between songs, the singer sits down with Oprah Winfrey for interview segments that touch on her life since 25 and where she’s at today, as 30 is about to make its bow.

ADELE ONE NIGHT ONLY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A smooth aerial shot takes in Los Angeles’s Griffith Observatory bathed in a blush of evening pinks and purples. Cut to Oprah Winfrey at crowd level, the building and stage platform in the background. “You have a front-row seat to a very special one night only concert with Adele!”

The Gist: Oprah speaks the truth. One Night Only features material from Adele’s new album 30, like lead single “Easy on Me” and its follow-up, “I Drink Wine,” as well as representative material culled from her decade-plus on the scene: “Hello,” the James Bond theme “Skyfall,” the 25 highlight “When We Were Young,” and the clapback gospel-blues of her 2011 single “Rollin’ in the Deep.” Looking resplendent in a curvy black evening gown that she disarmingly refers to as her “mermaid dress” (as well as making a funny reference to the wardrobe from Death Becomes Her), Adele performs from a platform overlooking the front lawn of the Griffith Observatory. She’s joined by a full band featuring piano, understated percussion, a full string section, and backup singers; the few hundred lucky souls gathered in semicircle seating include luminaries and heavy hitters like Seth Rogen, Lizzo, Melissa McCarthy, James Corden, Gordon Ramsay, and Drake. Cutaways keep capturing these individuals in the crowd the way sporting events on television love to highlight which celebrities are in attendance at the game.

Banking off the performance piece in One Night Only are sit-down interview sequences where Adele joins Oprah in a conversation nook located inside the exquisitely maintained rose garden at the talk show host and media giant’s Montecito home. In the six years since her last album, Adele got married, had a son, got divorced, and throughout all of that she also got sober and lost a considerable amount of weight. In other words, there’s a lot to talk about. “It was when I was going through everything a couple years ago, when I was going through my divorce,” Adele tells Oprah of quitting the booze. “Not at the beginning. At first — whew, no. I think I probably kept the alcohol industry alive. But once I realized I’ve got a lot of work to do on myself, I stopped drinking, started working out lots and stuff, to sort of keep me centered.”

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Adele and Billie Eilish, as singers of Bond ballads, songwriters, and worldwide superstars, are intrinsically linked. Just as One Night Only utilizes Los Angeles as the backdrop for Adele’s debut of her new material, Eilish did the same with her recent concert film Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles. (That one switched out the Griffith Observatory for another iconic area location, The Hollywood Bowl.) Meanwhile, in addition to One Night Only which aired for American audiences on CBS, Adele has also filmed a special for the British network ITV called An Audience With Adele.

Our Take: In its interview segments, the one-on-ones in Oprah’s richly adorned rose garden, One Night Only becomes a live-action version of a splashy cover story for the glossy monthlies you see shouting out at you in line at the grocery store. Adele’s divorce, Adele’s sobriety, Adele’s weight loss, Adele’s father’s death from alcoholism, Adele’s struggle to overcome anxiety issues, Adele’s kid’s adorable perspective on her career as a worldwide superstar: the segments are framed like therapy sessions ringed with the gilded lining of celebrity adulation. Oprah tells Adele that many women will be liberated by listening to her new album (it’s framed largely as a divorce record), because so many of them choose to stay in relationships they know aren’t working. “Stay together for the kids,” and all of that. And for her part, Adele explains away her weight loss as just a function of finding her true self. “My body has been objectified my entire career. I’m either too big, I’m either too small. I’m hot, or I’m not, whatever. I’ve never looked up to anyone because of their body. I was body positive then, and I’m body positive now.”

As for the music, the performances hit each Adele hallmark: confessional pathos building on the powerful throughline of her vocal into bracing choruses full of catharsis and crescendo. Shots of Aaron Paul and Melissa McCarthy grooving are one way to sell this. But the sweeping string section, graceful backup vocalists, and stately backdrop of the Griffith Observatory as evening becomes night in the City of Angels is certainly a better way to do it. As night falls, the building’s walls become a kaleidoscope of color, memory lane moments from Adele’s life, and multiplied images of the singer herself, all of it occurring in the shadow of the Hollywood sign. You can certainly say One Night Only gets cinematic.

Sex and Skin: Come on, mate.

Parting Shot: As “Love Is a Game” reaches its final moments, Adele offers her thanks to the celeb-studded crowd, and a not-so-veiled reference to her recent personal dramas. “Thank you for coming. Thank you for sticking with me. Especially everyone that knows me. Because I bet it was hard to hang on sometimes.”

Sleeper Star: Adele’s bejeweled accessories include gleaming gold celestial bodies that match the tat on her forearm.

Most Pilot-y Line: “This next one is a golden oldie, I would say,” Adele says, leading into “Someone Like You.” “And um, yeah, it’s the first time I’ve sung it in public since, um, since everything went down.” She laughs. “All right, you ready?”

Our Call: STREAM IT. One Night Only finds Adele personally refreshed and professionally primed, a place her legions of adoring fans will certainly enjoy hearing about in both performance and interview.

Johnny Loftus is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift. Follow him on Twitter: @glennganges

Watch Adele One Night Only on Paramount+