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Cameron Blakely as Harold Zidler and the original world tour company. Picture: Matt Crockett Moulin Rouge! The Musical Birmingham Hippodrome ***** Ooh, la, la, la, c'est magnifique, mes amis! A night of unbridled theatre magic carrying you through the streets of turn of the century Montmartre in a flurry of fabulous fun and moments of heart-rending romance. It brings Baz Luhrmann's Oscar winning 2001 classic romantic movie to the stage and keeps the basic story line involving the failing night club intact to its tragic end – the traditional denouement it seems for operas and musicals in 19th century Paris . . . remember Mimì? Harold Zidler, who runs the Moulin Rouge, the Red Windmill, in a lovely performance by Cameron Blakely, is way over his top hat in debt with the club about to go under. Blakely gives him a less sinister, far friendlier Emcee role, playing to the audience and to the Duke. The Duke, played with a haughty air of privilege by James Bryers, is fabulously rich and could save the club with little more than the change in his pocket . . . if he could be, should we say, persuaded to invest. And that is where Satine comes in. She is the club's star played quite beautifully by Verity Thompson as the attractive headliner and what a voice she has to boot. Satine is not only a nightclub diva she is also a courtesan . . . which is . . . well, it's the top end of a rather old and often horizontal profession.
Verity Thompson as Satine and Nate Landskroner as Christian The Duke has taken a shine to her, which is also a euphemism as well in this case, and Harold, with his eye on the main chance is persuading Satine to take one . . . or rather more than one in this case, for the team to save the club, jobs and futures. In the film Christian is English and a composer with a show he has written that he wants to put on at the club, while here he is American and the show comes from Kurt Hansley's Toulouse-Lautrec and his Argentinian partner in Bohemian life Santiago, played with Latin flair by Rodrigo Negrini. Now, without casting aspersions on old Toulouse, as a playwright . . . he would be well advised to stick to painting, just saying. Nate Landskroner plays a lovely Christian and adds a fine voice to the role. His naïve Ohian is all idealism and hopeless romantic, and you do feel for him when reality, even if it is not as he sees it, hits home. So, back to the plot. The problem is that Satine gets her Dukes in a twist - poor romantic, idealists in threadbare clothes and arrogant, well dressed, entitled, champagne tyrants are often confused, so she falls for . . . come on, it's an easy to make a mistake . . . she falls for the wrong one for investment, even if he is the right one for love. He's the one whose worldly wealth is pretty much what he is wearing, who hasn't enough to buy a drink let alone save a club, but he does write good songs . . . sort of, but more of that later. Hansley, incidentally, amid his eccentric comedy, pops up with a moving Nature Boy, the old Nat King Cole classic covered by everyone from Sinatra to Bowie. The musical keeps up the film's little game with the audience as it slips lyrics from songs into dialogue, or drops in snatches of familiar songs into musical numbers and adds new lyrics to familiar songs – it’s a pastiche that creates a double A4 size page of musical credits in small type in the programme giving some idea of the rights that needed to be secured from Cab Calaway to Bob Dylan to Adele to Beyoncé. . . We are looking at more than 70 songs, some no more than a line worked into another number, from around 160 songwriters and 30 or so different music publishers. Just see how many you can spot. It is a huge cast, getting on for 30 strong, and the ensemble are brilliant giving us everything from showgirls and can can dancers to the great and good of turn of the century Parisienne society. Which brings in Sony Tayeh with innovative and always interesting choreography and the excellent orchestra under musical director Ben Ferguson, ten strong, which is big for any touring production, and what a difference in makes in depth and body to the music. And a nod too for Peter Hylenski as the sound designer to hit the right balance between orchestra and actors and singers. Everything clear as a bell. Derek McLane's ever-changing set is exciting, colourful dramatic or fun while Catherine Zuber's costumes set period and style to take us back to height of the Belle Époque. Equally superb is Justin Townsend's lighting creating everything from dramatic moments to cabaret shows, always effective, always fascinating to watch, adding to the narrative. John Logan's book along with Justine Levine's musical supervision has created a wonderful musical – it might be a jukebox musical, but Baz Luhrmann invented a new genre using one heck of a big jukebox and it is all brought to life by director Alex Timbers. We have a solid story, a moral dilemma, jokes, laughs, and moments of real emotion. It’s all you could want, theatre as it should be and one not to miss. The windmill sails will be turning to 15-11-25. Roger Clarke 16-10-25 |
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