Moulin Rouge

I thought this was visually amazing, gorgeous dancing and singing, and the costumes and sets were stunning, but it moved me not a jot. It was worth it for Danny Burstein, god bless him, but I could have taken or left the rest of it. Other than Danny (and Sahr Ngaujah and Tam Mutu, who were fab) it felt very paint by numbers. I had such high hopes sitting down, with the beautiful cast unsmiling, striding about and casting a menacing presence. But that dissipated immediately in favour of an aerobicised and clinical approach, which was decidedly lacking in sex appeal, for me. The only moments I began to feel something were the songs from the film - all of the rest just felt like very high grade karaoke. For me, there was much more passion in Virtue and Moir’s Moulin Rouge ice dancing programme from the most recent Winter Olympics. I was gobsmacked to hear people sobbing near the end and wanted to tell them to get to their nearest opera house and see La Boheme and/or Carmen, which do this much, much better.