Outside London’s Piccadilly Theatre, beneath a sign promoting “Truth, Beauty, Freedom, Love”, I had an ungenerous thought: is Moulin Rouge! The Musical a poor man’s Cabaret? Only, a mile down the road there’s a show on that has everything this one has – burlesque, bohemians, unadulterated bangers – but also Eddie Redmayne in a tank-top. Of course, musical theatre doesn’t really cater to poor men: tickets to Moulin Rouge aren’t cheap, but over at the Kit Kat Club they’re charging £200 entry for a midweek matinee in March. Still, the West End is now home to two rival nightclubs, and looking around, I start to worry all the cool kids are at the one down the road.
But wait, never mind. The underdog production is a reassuringly over-the-top one. My fears start to dissipate in a puff of dry ice – and weren’t they misplaced anyway? After all, this fin-de-siècle spectacular, based on Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 screen musical (which took $179m at the box office) is a Broadway import, baby; it’s already won ten Tonys. The budget is so big, the energy is so brash: nothing says “don’t worry about us” like a production that opens with sword-swallowers, scantily clad, withdrawing sabres from their throats. In the royal box there is a large, bejewelled elephant and around the stage concentric arches – golden, lace-like latticework – in the shape of a heart. Everything is red-velvet opulence; everything is kitsch. Think Alan Carr: Chatty Man on the Las Vegas strip.
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