There are certain shows that make you think of the joy that must have lit up the producer’s face when news reached them of its premise. With Moulin Rouge: Yes We Can-Can!, I imagine an eager young thing bursting into the shiny office around which their boss is prowling discontentedly while chomping on a cigar, and crying breathlessly: “The Moulin Rouge … the dance troupe … they’re all Brits! And it’s run by a woman … called Janet! She’s from Yorkshire!” The prowling stops. The head turns. A smile spreads across the formerly furious face and the cigar is ground out in an ashtray made from a replica of Michael Grade’s skull. “It’s The Yorkshire Vet in Paris!” “It’s Our Yorkshire Farm in high heels!” “It’s All Creatures Great and Small with” – the voice drops to a whisper – “boobs”.
How the faces of the production team must have fallen when they met Janet. For she is no motherly Jane McDonald type who suffuses viewers with an ineffable sense of happiness. Janet is a shark. Janet is nails. Whatever humanity she has in real life fails to make it across the screen. She is glorious.
