When you walk into the auditorium at the Piccadilly Theatre, no standard stage setup greets you. Instead, there are neon concentric hearts, lavish velvet plumes, a windmill and brightly lit letters spelling out the words: “Moulin Rouge!” The audience has been transported to the legendary Parisian cabaret venue, to watch a tale of love, sex and consumption play out while “Lady Marmalade” blasts. There are no rose-tinted glasses needed here – everything is already so red, it makes your eyes hurt. That is, of course, apart from the garish blue elephant draping over the side of a royal box.
As films go, you’ll struggle to find one more suited for the stage than Australian director Baz Luhrmann’s flashy 2001 jukebox musical, which starred Nicole Kidman as a breathy courtesan called Satine who falls in love with penniless young poet Christian (Ewan McGregor). That it took as long as it did is the real shock. Bursting onto Broadway in 2019, Moulin Rouge! The Musical won 10 Tony Awards (including Aaron Tveit in an uncontested Lead Actor category, thanks to the pandemic) and has finally hopped across to London’s West End with an all-new cast and a production that’s even more extravagant than the film. Maybe it’s the tradition of pantomime in the UK, the cast and crew tell me, but the British audience were dancing in their seats and shouting back in previews before the show was forced to close for a week over Christmas.
