From CCN.com:
Madonna is critic-proof LONDON, England (Reuters) -- British theatre critics decided on Friday that pop superstar Madonna was more Mechanical Girl than Material Girl in her much-hyped London stage debut. But her London run in "Up for Grabs" by Australian playwright David Williamson is critic-proof -- the show has already sold out and tickets are changing hands on the black market for over 10 times face value. Celebrity friends, from fellow singer Sting to fashion designer Stella McCartney, rallied round after Thursday's glittering first night to praise the world's most famous female pop star for taking to the stage. "She was wonderful," Sting told reporters. The audience too were certainly in awe of her -- Madonna was greeted with whoops of delight at curtain-up. But next day the critics were distinctly lukewarm. "Madonna fails to shine," decreed the Guardian. "Mechanical Girl distorts the message of soft-centered satire," said The Independent. The play's sex scenes certainly raised a few eyebrows in the auditorium. Playing a voracious art dealer out to bump up the price of a Jackson Pollock painting, Madonna was locked in a passionate lesbian embrace with a prospective client in one scene and strapped on a giant sex aid to service a corpulent billionaire buyer in another. London has lately been attracting a steady stream of Hollywood stars from Nicole Kidman to Gwyneth Paltrow and Matt Damon, eagerly accepting stage roles in Britain to boost their acting credentials back home.