Moulin Rouge! The Musical Reviews: What the Critics Say

Moulin Rouge! The Musical opened at the Piccadilly Theatre in January 2022 and has played there ever since. The critics agreed on one thing and split hard on another: nobody disputed that it looks extraordinary, and they could not agree on whether the story underneath carries its weight.

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The Critics' Verdict

The ratings ran from four stars down to two, with most landing on three. The Telegraph, The Independent, The Observer, The Arts Desk and WhatsOnStage were the warmest at four. The Guardian, The Times, the Evening Standard, the Financial Times and Time Out all gave three. The Stage was the outlier at two.

The dividing line was consistent. Reviewers who came for spectacle got everything they wanted. Reviewers who wanted the love story to carry the evening found it thin. It is a useful thing to know before you book, because it tells you exactly what kind of night this is.

The Telegraph went back to it in October 2023, nearly two years into the run, and called it "still a magnifique crowd-pleaser" and "beguilingly transporting, all-enveloping theatre".

What the Reviews Praised

The design was the one thing nobody argued about.

• The Guardian called Derek McLane's design "jaw-dropping", adding that the sets "barely need actors" (3/5).
• The Independent found the whole thing "ostentatious, absurd, and completely ravishing to look at" (4/5).
• The Evening Standard, one of the more sceptical notices, still described the sets and Catherine Zuber's costumes as "essays in polychromatic fabulousness", and noted "more fishnets here than in the entire British trawler industry" (3/5).
• WhatsOnStage summed up the warm end of the response: "a musical with a heart of gold that seeks to entertain" (4/5).
• The Observer put the case for the defence plainly: "the plot is not the point of this extravaganza: it's a whirling machine in which set, choreography and music lavishly fuse" (4/5).

The choreography and the big company numbers also came out well, with the tango built on Roxanne singled out repeatedly as the highlight of the evening.

Where Reviews Were Mixed

Two criticisms recur, and both are worth knowing because both are matters of taste rather than execution.

The first is the story. The Evening Standard called it "razzle-dazzle style but precious little substance" (3/5). Time Out found "spectacle in spades but not much heart" (3/5). The Stage, the harshest, called it "a shell of a show, all noise and no signal" (2/5).

The second is the sheer density of the music. The Guardian felt the added songs were "incongruous to the point where we might as well have gone to karaoke instead" (3/5), and The Times described the score as "pouring a few hundredweight of melodies into a cement mixer lorry and adding several tons of rhinestones" (3/5). More than seventy songs are stacked and overlapped rather than played through one at a time. Most audiences find that thrilling. A few critics found it exhausting.

Is Moulin Rouge! The Musical Right for You?

You will probably love it if you want spectacle above everything, you know and love the film, you are booking for an occasion, or you want a night out that does not ask much of you beyond turning up and enjoying it.

You might want something else if you want a musical that moves you through its story rather than its staging, you prefer a quieter evening, or you are lukewarm on musicals generally. This one will not change your mind.

Audiences are considerably warmer than the critics were. Public ratings run at around nine out of ten across several thousand people who have actually been, which is one of the widest gaps between press and public of any show currently running in the West End. If you are weighing the three-star reviews against the queue outside the theatre, the queue is telling you something real.

Call us on 020 7193 9050 if you are unsure whether it is your kind of night. We will give you a straight answer.

Book Moulin Rouge! The Musical Tickets

Tickets start from around £25, a good seat is usually around £100, and premium seats from around £150, with weekends a little higher. All of our prices are all-in: the price you see on the seating map is the price you pay, with nothing added at checkout.

See full times, seat advice and the Can Can tables on our Moulin Rouge! The Musical tickets page.

Book tickets • Call us on 020 7193 9050

Sources

The Telegraph · The Observer · The Independent · The Guardian · The Times · Evening Standard · Financial Times · WhatsOnStage · Time Out · The Stage · The Arts Desk · BroadwayWorld · Londonist