Getting Your Kicks at the Moulin Rouge – Is this Paris Must-Do Really a Must?

A night getting your kicks at the Moulin Rouge in Paris’ red-light district, Pigalle, is a must-do experience for many travellers visiting Paris if the nightly long lines on Boulevard Clichy are any indication. It wasn’t on our to-do list on our first holiday to Paris – we’d been visiting Paris since way back in 1999, and ended up wroting a guidebook to Paris for Lonely Planet – so this was the first trip we went to the Moulin Rouge. This is our Moulin Rouge review.

Why did we go to the Moulin Rouge this Paris trip after all these years? Well, since our last visit, Australian filmmaker Baz Luhrmann’s exuberant film Moulin Rouge came out: with production designer-wife Catherine Martin’s magical sets and flamboyant costumes, and Baz’s dazzling vision with its stylistic excess, hyper-saturated colours, explosive energy, and rocking soundtrack, it captivated from start to finish. It was utterly intoxicating. It made this former filmmaker regret her career directions for a while. It also made me want to go to the real Moulin Rouge.

After we arrived in Paris this trip, we kept noticing postcards of Toulouse Lautrec’s paintings of the Moulin Rouge on postcard stands as we strolled through Montmartre every day – our home away from home for the Paris leg of our yearlong global grand tour dedicated to slow travel, local travel and experiential travel is a charming Montmartre apartment. The Lautrec postcards of the Moulin Rouge and Montmartre intrigued us.

Then on our art walk around Montmartre with artist Marie Theres, she vividly described the first cabarets held in tents that Lautrec had painted in the leafy gardens of the old mills that had once dotted the hills of Montmartre. Moulin Rouge means ‘red mill’ and Marie Theres’ colourful descriptions captured our imaginations. We were curious to see if there was any resemblance between Lautrec’s Moulin Rouge, Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge, and the modern-day spectacle of the Moulin Rouge, one of Paris’ most popular attractions.

The Moulin Rouge played a pivotal role in the history of Montmartre, which at various times has been considered bohemian, fashionable, touristy, tacky – and now arty and cool again, if you know where to go. We wondered if the Moulin Rouge might have actually become hip again, since Baz’s movie, and then the burlesque trend that seemed to be taking the world by storm.

And as we’re on a quest to get under the skin of the places we’re settling into this year, it made sense to see a show at the Moulin Rouge. A night at the Moulin Rouge is one of the most popular things to do in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, so we were curious to see if it lived up to the hype. Admit it, you’re curious too.

Getting Your Kicks at the Moulin Rouge! Is this Paris Must-Do Really a Must?

Opened in 1889 by Joseph Oller, the Moulin Rouge is regarded as the birthplace of the French can-can, an exuberant high-energy dance, where chorus lines of healthy-looking girls wearing layers of petticoats and skirts, scream and shriek as they vigorously kick their long legs high into the air, punctuating the kicks with cartwheels and splits.

Disappointingly, with the Moulin Rouge show we saw, called Féerie, the cancan made only a brief appearance and not until the end the cabaret. For the most part, the risqué revue was a cross between French cabaret, early burlesque, a Las Vegas extravaganza, and a Eurovision song contest, which will satisfy lovers of kitsch.

The Moulin Rouge show we saw shifted between surprisingly brilliant (the juggler, puppeteer, ventriloquist, and those can can kicks!), astonishingly bad (the pirate dancers, snake woman, gay Musketeers, and ‘boogie woogie’ routine), a cute kind of weird (the Shetland ponies act), and just plain weird (the topless clowns, which were more eerie than Feerie. What is it about clowns that makes them so scary?).

The Moulin Rouge show is lots of fun – if you pretend you haven’t seen a musical since 1985. The women are absolutely gorgeous (many are Australian!) and the costumes are fabulous. However, there’s a lot of synchronised strutting about the stage in little else but feathers and sequins (and not enough of those high kicks), the songs are mostly cringe-worthy, and the show is dated.

Despite the burlesque craze of recent years, the Moulin Rouge show we saw was less about nostalgia and satire, and is more about skin. Essentially, with its topless girls and fey dancers, it’s still a show aimed squarely at men, and desperately needs a revamp.

So do we recommend spending a night at the Moulin Rouge? Well, it depends…

Is a Moulin Rouge Show a Must or Not When You’re in Paris?

A Moulin Rouge show is expensive so buying tickets to a dinner show is not a decision most travellers would take lightly. If money is no object or this is a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Paris, go for it. It’s not? Skip the dinner show and go to the champagne show. We went as guests of the Moulin Rouge to the 11pm show, which included half a bottle of champagne, and is much more affordable.

So who should see a Moulin Rouge show? Go if you enjoy a dazzling spectacle with a bit of Busby Berkley-inspired choreography, you’re Paris completists, you’re staying in Montmartre-Pigalle and you’re keen to get a taste of some of that bohemian history and experience all that the neighbourhood offers. You’ll definitely get a kick out of a Moulin Rouge show.

There’s still plenty of turn-of-the-century France in the retro décor which will take you back in time. We loved the dimly-lit cabaret atmosphere, with small tables illuminated by lamps, just light enough so we could see our flutes of bubbly. And there’s loads of nostalgia-value – after all, Édith Piaf, Josephine Baker, Ella Fitzgerald, Liza Minnelli, and Frank Sinatra all performed here.

However, a show might not be for you if you loved Australian director Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 film Moulin Rouge starring Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor. You might be disappointed that the present-day Moulin Rouge doesn’t quite match the flamboyance, exuberance, lavishness, and bohemian spirit of the Moulin Rouge depicted in Luhrmann’s film. The modern-day Moulin Rouge is not like Toulouse Lautrec’s Moulin Rouge either.

There’s hope, though: at the time of writing, each Moulin Rouge show runs for around 10-12 years, so it’s time for a change. By the time you read this, there will probably be a new production. If the organisers have any sense, they’ll be hiring Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin to produce the next new show.

Images supplied by the Moulin Rouge. If you get to a Moulin Rouge show in Paris we’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.