Liisi LaFontaine and Jamie Bogyo in Conversation with BBC Radio Oxford Presenter Kat Orman
Get to know the incredible young actors currently leading the cast of Moulin Rouge! The Musical in London’s West End (tickets at MoulinRougeTheMusical.co.uk). Liisi LaFontaine reveals her sixth sense about landing a role in the show, while Jamie Bogyo talks about how his star potential was spotted in drama school.
Listen to their chat with BBC Radio Oxford, or read the full transcript below.
Liisi Lafontaine and Jamie Bogyo (7th June 2022). BBC Radio Oxford, presenter Kat Orman, producer Dan Facey
Photo courtesy of West End Media
LIISI: This is my second show in London. I saw the show – when Moulin Rouge! did their out of town in Boston I was doing a show directly next door, and when I saw it on Broadway and watched Satine enter, I was like “I have to do this”. I just had a weird feeling in my gut, I was like “I feel I’m gonna do this.” So, when I booked it, it was this amazing full circle, crazy, beautiful thing to be able to come back to London and do this absolute dream show.
[Music plays – “Lady Marmalade”]
HEY SISTA, GO SISTA, SOUL SISTA, FLOW SISTA
HEY SISTA, GO SISTA, SOUL SISTA, FLOW SISTA
HE MET MARMALADE DOWN IN OLD MOULIN ROUGE
STRUTTIN’ HER STUFF ON THE STREET
KAT: This is a show like no other, isn’t it?
JAMIE: Absolutely, there’s really nothing like it.
KAT: Yeah, I mean it’s sexy, it’s spectacular, it’s about love, it’s about excess. I mean the set as well is breath-taking.
JAMIE: Absolutely. We see it every day and my jaw never doesn’t drop when I see it. It’s cause it’s just this incredible thing from the moment you walk into the theatre you’re surrounded by the world of the Moulin Rouge with this red velvet and a giant life-sized elephant trunk and a huge windmill and cages and sword swallowers, it’s phenomenal. I feel so lucky to work in a place like that.
GIUCHIE, GIUCHIE, YA YA DADA
GIUCHIE, GIUCHIE, YA YA HERE
MOCHA CHOCALATA YA YA
CREOLE LADY MARMALADE
KAT: Was this something that maybe you always wanted to do? I mean, for Liisi it’s a dream job. Was this something that you had your hopes on doing a musical like this?
JAMIE: It was beyond my wildest dreams. This is my first ever job, so I graduated from drama school, and I was just really hoping to get an agent. I was the only person in my drama school year who left without an agent, so I was just hoping to get a job. And then, I very luckily did get an agent, and this was one of the first things she set me up for. It was so beyond what I could’ve expected, I was just hoping to make a good impression on the casting director really and that she’d call me back for something else. It’s been my dream to perform – I’ve loved musicals my whole life – but I could never have expected something like this, it’s such a joy to do!
KAT: That’s quite good on your CV as well – to get a job like this out of drama school… Congratulations! Pretty impressive I have to say, Jamie.
Liisi, for people that don’t know maybe the storyline, give us a synopsis – not everybody, I guess, would have seen the film, for instance.
LIISI: It’s based off of Baz Luhrmann’s film that came out around 20 years ago, in 2001. It’s a spectacular love story set in the Moulin Rouge in Paris, which is a famed nightclub. At this point in the story, this club is struggling a little bit and the owner of the club Zidler, enlists Satine, who is the Sparkling Diamond, the lead performer of the club, to seduce a wealthy duke to keep the doors open. In a twist of fate, she mistakes the wealthy duke for the penniless Christian, who came to Paris to find himself and to be an artist. Then all this drama ensues because now she has fallen in love, but she has to maintain this other relationship; it’s a rollercoaster of emotions and all told through amazing pop music from, honestly, around 100 years ago with the original Can Can all the way up until today. It’s a celebration of love and life and community and artistry, I think.
KAT: When I was talking to my mother, who is going to be 92 this year, it was a proud moment when she told me that she had been to the Moulin Rouge with my late father.
LIISI: Oh, my gosh!
KAT: Yeah, I couldn’t quite imagine them in the Moulin Rouge…
JAMIE: Good to know they were having wild times…
KAT: Good to know they once did, Jamie. Thank you very much for that…
But the amazing news is, Jamie, that actually the show has been extended as well, hasn’t it? So how can we get tickets? We want to grab these.
JAMIE: Well, ask no further, you can go to moulinrougemusical.com and book your tickets today. Come see us, come on down to the Piccadilly Theatre. We have extended through January ’23, but I’m hoping that the Moulin Rouge! will be here for as long as the Moulin Rouge is in Paris, so it’s, what, a hundred or so years? But don’t bank on it by now, you know what I mean, don’t wait, don’t wait. Please do join us, it’s really one of the best nights out.
GIUCHIE, GIUCHIE, YA YA DADA
GIUCHIE, GIUCHIE, YA YA HERE
MOCHA CHOCALATA YA YA
CREOLE LADY MARMALADE
[Music stops]