Olivia DeanMarlay Park, Dublin★★★★☆Olivia Dean is the girl next door who learned to roar. The London singer earned a Mercury nomination in 2023 for Messy, her pleasantly diaristic soul-pop debut album, but has ascended to an entirely new level of fame and acclaim courtesy of last year’s The Art of Loving, an album she brings vividly to life at two sold-out nights at Marlay Park on Saturday and Sunday.Dean, who won the best-new-artist award at this year’s Grammys, to go alongside four 2026 Brit Awards, is revealed to be several artists in one across a brilliantly affirmative gig – the largest headliner of her career – that moves through highs and lows but is fuelled throughout by her approachable star power. It certainly has a lot of moving parts, from multiple costume changes to an acoustic section and a display of first-on-the-floor-at-the-wedding dancing by the 27-year-old during an ecstatic cover of Curtis Mayfield’s Move on Up.There are tears to go with the joy on Sunday evening. Dean just about holds it together as night descends when she tells the crowd that her vocals are shot and that she’s fighting to make it to the end. “I want to be honest with you,” she says. “I’m losing my voice, and it’s making me cry.”She’s high on emotion from the very start, running on to the stage with a huge grin. Her polka-dot dress is a frock to steal the spotlight – at least until she plunges into her opening song, Nice to Each Other, a soul-jazz souffle as smooth as its message that we should all try to be a little more tolerant and kindly towards both friends and strangers.Dean is a wonderful singer and a versatile songwriter, moving at ease from the confessional soul of Lady Lady to the Laurel Canyon folk of Carmen – a celebration of immigrants dedicated to her Guyanese grandmother and performed from a ramp extending from the stage.She’s also a great advocate for her music. Dean is blessed with expressive features, so you can see the feeling on her face as she celebrates emotional self-care on the mid-tempo So Easy (To Fall in Love) and to take the positive from a break-up on the bustling Time.[ Róisín Ingle: You think your pop music days are over, but then an artist like Olivia Dean comes alongOpens in new window ]But if the performance is solid, her lengthy monologues between songs could do with trimming. And it is, as ever, jarring to hear a British artist swoop in and refer to Dublin as part of their “UK tour”.That said, there’s no denying the comedy value and cultural shock as she tries to speak while the audience launches into another impromptu “Olé, olé, olé”. There’s also an odd moment early on when she’s interrupted by screams from the front, as if a slasher movie is unfolding in Marlay Park. (No emergency: merely some overexcited fans.)[ Olivia Dean: ‘Why do I have to be in distress to make good music? Why can’t I just be happy?’Opens in new window ]Despite Dean’s fears about her voice, she sounds beautifully tender as she concludes with Man I Need. The tune is a bopper that twinkles amid the darkness that has finally crept over south Dublin on the summer solstice – a darkness briefly interrupted by a closing fusillade of fireworks. It confirms Dean as a star on the rise.