After winning 10 Tony awards on Broadway, an adaptation of Baz Luhrmann’s high-kicking, pop song-mashing film hits both the West End and Melbourne. Its creators draw back the red velvet curtain …
You’ve never seen so much red velvet. Crimson drapes across the ceiling of London’s Piccadilly theatre, past the crystal chandeliers, the lit-up windmill, the blue jewelled elephant and the neon sign that reads: Moulin Rouge. On stage, there are fishnets, ruffled skirts, sequined bustiers and extravagant feather headdresses. All to make you feel as if you’ve been transported to Paris’s seedy Pigalle circa 1899. Rest assured, if you loved Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 film, the one with Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman singing Elton John in a collision of belle époque and 20th-century pop, you will get what you’re looking for here.
Moulin Rouge! The Musical does not drastically reinvent its source material. “We’ve all been to that adaptation where you’re like: ‘What did you do to ET? Why is ET a serial killer?!” says director Alex Timbers. “Our goal is that in the first five minutes” – the show opens with a blistering rendition of Lady Marmalade – “your shoulders go down, phew, and you realise everyone who made this loves the movie too.”
