Moulin Rouge! The Musical Review | Palace Theatre | Manchester
- Frances
- 19 minutes ago
- 2 min read
The diamond dogs are out to capture the attention of the Palace theatre audience, with a musical so splendiferous it doesn’t leave a sequin out of place. Moulin Rouge! The Musical boils Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 fast-cut film to its core and delivers a stage adaptation with fewer innuendoes but just as much heart.
Sitting amongst the windmill and elephant structures that nod to Paris’s 1889 cabaret, the red lights of the Moulin Rouge bathe the Palace theatre audience in their seductive lighting and immersive set. Luhrmann’s live singing, swift-moving movie borrows heavily from the Bollywood aesthetic and this opulent, bedazzled stage adaption cannot be faulted for its visuals. However, the show’s tweakments are noticeable despite the changes feeling necessary. Several song choices date the show or stop its momentum, but it also opts to claw back the original Bollywood-esque musical ending for a simplified, straight-shooting finale.
The musical is framed within the fantastical world of the Moulin Rouge where owner Harold Zidler (Cameron Blakely) and his bubbly star performer Satine (Verity Thompson) strive to pack the rafters to keep the red lights on. Meanwhile, lovesick composer Christian (Nate Landsteiner) and his bohemian revolutionaries Toulouse-Lautrec (Kurt Kansley) and Santiago (Rodrigo Negrini) scheme to get their work shown at the cabaret. All dreams can be made possible with a sizeable investment from the lustful Duke (James Bryers), who also plans to cash in on the courtesan Satine.
The stage show is a faithful recreation of its film and includes incredible costume changes, high-kicking choreography and a talented cast of performers. However, this melodramatic love triangle is let down by its jukebox picks, which result in blending songs to varying degrees of effectiveness.
Bryers is a beautiful baddie, strutting across the stage to demand attention, but he is introduced with OutKast’s So Fresh, So Clean, a song that makes sense on paper but just sounds jarring when remixed on stage. Multiple romantic tracks are layered for the Elephant Love Medley, which keeps you on your toes as you try to remember the original songs, and it is reminiscent of the film, however songs like Katy Perry’s Firework are used for Satine solo, that don’t add much depth or drama to the musical. The fantastic Thompson is still given plenty of time to shine with The Sparkling Diamond entrance and during a touching duet with Landsteiner for the films original song, Come What May. The ensemble cast also stun as members of the Moulin Rouge, entertaining before the show and during the El Tango De Roxanne. They give the space a family atmosphere with Satine actually having friends to talk to as she finds herself drawn into a deadly love triangle between the Duke and Christian.
Moulin Rouge! The Musical is a worthy adaptation which may have you returning to the Red Mill for the glitz and glamour of the stage. The explosive romance is a simple story, propped up by its intensely talented cast whose sequinned costumes and mesmerising dance numbers are enough to distract from its questionable soundtrack.
Tickets are available via the ATG link