Moulin Rouge! The Musical – Piccadilly Theatre

Pictures: Roy Tan

Moulin Rouge! The Musical continues at the Piccadilly Theatre, London.

Star rating: four stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ✩

It is hard to envisage now, some 20 years on, just how remarkable and visually unique Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! was when it hit cinemas in 2001. Not only was it a period in which movie musicals were rare, Luhrmann’s frenetic pacing, steadfast refusal to ground his work in anything approaching realism and the relentless melding of pop hits from several decades made for a spectacle which has, rightly, remained steadfast in the public affection.

But such a reputation can loom heavily over a stage adaptation. Such a production must appeal to those who adore the film, but needs also to work in situ on a West End stage.

Within the Piccadilly Theatre – whose auditorium is bedecked in silks and velvets, the scarlet and gold of the onstage theatre fusing spectacularly with its real world counterpart – director Alex Timbers throws the audience into the garish, camp glories of Parisian decadence from the outset. Everything kicks off with an extended sequence of ‘Lady Marmalade’ – drawing less from the film than the pop video of its breakout song – introducing everyone to the world of Parisian theatre-cum-bordello the Moulin Rouge and its proprietor MC, Harold Zidler (Clive Carter).

Carter revels in his role here, joshing with the audience as he lines the key players up for the central love triangle: Liisi LaFontaine’s singer Satine must court Simon Bailey’s Duke, in the hope that his financial attentions will be of benefit to both her and Zidler; but in a case of mistaken identity, she finds herself flirting instead with impoverished artist Christian (Jamie Bogyo).

There is a plot, of sorts, underneath all the frills and diamonds. To cover for their mutual love, Christian and Satine end up persuading Zidler to stage a musical, to be written by Christian’s friend Henri Toulouse-Lautrec (Jason Pennycooke, on his usual impishly excellent form) and bankrolled by the Duke in return for continued attention from Satine. The play within a play ends up, of course, a parallel of the leading players’ own lives – although, weirdly, acted out on stage as if all concerned have no performance skills whatsoever, despite all the in-character evidence to the contrary.

But in all fairness, the plot is not what people are here for, it is just a mechanism by which to catapult the characters through a catalogue of pop classics even broader than the original film managed. Barely a moment goes by without someone breaking into song, only for someone else to start singing a different number altogether.

And so we get a medley of Rolling Stones hits, a mash-up of Gnarls Barkley’s ‘Crazy’ with Adele’s ‘Rolling in the Deep’, or Lorde’s ‘Royals’ jostling with T Rex’s ‘Children of the Revolution’. The programme lists a total of 74 songs, and while several may only be featured for a line or two, that’s surely some sort of West End record.

It’s all utterly bonkers, and therefore completely in keeping with the spirit and musicality of the original film. Yet one can’t help wishing on occasion that the cast could just take a breath and perform a single number with a bit more emotional depth, rather than embark on yet another mash-up.

As it is, the whole musical is very much an extravagant display of performative romance, rather than being in any way romantic (although to be fair, that is also a valid criticism of the source material). John Logan’s book does little to help here, saddling Bailey with a Duke that has not enough depth to be the truly villainous antagonist he needs to be and threatening to bring parts of Act II to a grinding halt with some deathly prose. And Satine’s failing health – in true La Boheme fashion, she is dying of consumption – is unintentionally comically telegraphed with LaFontaine producing a handkerchief with a perfect circle of blood not once, but twice. (At one point, the dastardly Duke lambasts the poor book quality of the play Christian and Satine are rehearsing, and suggests more dancing girls to replace the boring talky bits. It’s a suggestion that the musical as a whole would do well to heed.)

Some of the film’s key musical numbers remain intact, including ‘Come What May’, the movie’s only original song. Another favourite from the film took the Police song ‘Roxanne’ and reimagined it as an Argentine tango, and that of course is in, too – one of many scenes to showcase Justin Townsend’s dramatic lighting designs and Sonya Tayeh’s stunning choreography. The number is slightly let down by giving all the vocals to Bogyo’s smooth-voiced Christian, losing the hard, rasping delivery that made the movie version so tremendously dripping with atmosphere.

That particular vocal styling is instead given to a number earlier in the show, at the opening of Act II, as Elia Lo Tauro’s Santiago leads a full-throated, full-throttle ensemble number of Lady Gaga’s ‘Bad Romance’. It’s the best production number of the evening, despite many others vying in competition.

Derek McLane’s scenic designs take the perspective-defying playfulness of Luhrmann’s cinematic vision and attempt to replicate that within the confines of a small stage, and for the most part they work well. The initial splendour of the Moulin Rouge stage is luscious and enticing; less successful is Satine’s dressing room-cum-bedchamber, whose location inside a gigantic elephant statue is implied by use of a pachyderm-shaped proscenium arch, while a model Eiffel Tower wheeled on for a brief dance sequence doesn’t quite capture the same sense of rooftop ridiculousness as it does in the film.

But to quote a line from the show, “don’t let all the glitter and velvet fool you” – it is the people on stage who are, rightly, the focus of our attention. They are all having a blast, and it’s impossible to prevent oneself from feeling the same. With its larger than life personalities, modern pop songs shoehorned into gossamer-thin plots and a refusal to take itself too seriously, Moulin Rouge! is at its best when it remembers that it is, in essence, a great big, Parisian-set panto. When it really lets rip, there is nothing in the West End that can match it.

Scott Matthewman