Melissa James and Jamie Muscato Talk to BBC Radio Oxford Presenter Jerome Sale

Melissa James and Jamie Muscato (12th January 2023). BBC Radio Oxford, presenter Jerome Sale, producers Dan Facey (BBC Oxford) & Davy Nougarede (West End Media)
Image courtesy of West End Media

JEROME: It’s seventeen minutes to one, and that brings us to a time for a trip to the Moulin Rouge.

(Music plays – “Lady Marmalade”)

Yep, the award-winning musical has been bringing the house down in the West End for the last couple of years and it has now been extended to June. We’ve got Melissa James and Jamie Muscato, stars of the show, with us on the programme this afternoon. Welcome both, thanks for coming on!

MELISSA AND JAMIE: Hi! Thanks for having us!

JEROME: Really good to have you on! Now, for people who haven’t seen the film or aren’t familiar with the history of this, what can you tell us about the Moulin Rouge?

JAMIE: It’s an absolutely massive spectacle of a show. We meet Christian at the beginning, and he’s come over from America. He’s wide eyed, he goes to Paris, Montmartre. He falls in love with this Bohemian lifestyle. He gets taken to the Moulin Rouge and then his eyes really open. He sees Satine, who is the beautiful lead dancer and performer of the Moulin Rouge, and absolutely falls in love with her. And then, through that we’ve got another couple of hours of their love story coming in and out. She’s got another ‘gentleman’, who there is a bit of a triangle with. But at the end of the day, they end up together…for a bit. But it’s fantastic.

JEROME: Melissa, if anyone listening hasn’t been, but wants to get a feel of the show… I think it’s really important to look it up online. The set’s incredible, and on stage, such a huge lavish story. How does it work?

MELISSA: Yeah, the set is amazing. You literally walk into the theatre, and you are in the Moulin Rouge. The whole place has been transformed, there’s a pre-show, so you instantly feel kind of in our world, which is really helpful for us. Then, it starts off with a huge bang. We’ve got 20 beautiful, amazing ensemble dancers, who are giving you the Can Can. The costumes are incredible, there’s pyrotechnics

JAMIE: It’s definitely a spectacle!

MELISSA: It’s definitely a spectacle. And then, once you come into Satine’s boudoir, there’s an Elephant bedroom on stage. It’s stunning. And the costumes are amazing! So, it’s a massive spectacle for everyone, and the songs and the music, they don’t stop. There are 75 songs in the whole show, which is kind of unheard of.

JAMIE: You have to see it to believe it!

JEROME: Yeah, absolutely. A challenge, but a joy to be involved with, I would’ve thought.

MELISSA: Oh, my God! Yes!

JAMIE: 100%. And the songs we get to sing every night are some of the best. If you like music, you’ll like all of the songs. We’ve got Adele, Lady Gaga, Elton John, Bowie, Beyoncé; anyone who’s anyone over the last 30, 40, 50 years, they’re in there.

JEROME: You’ve come to the right place to promote this, because that’s basically our playlist.

(Melissa and Jamie laugh)

The characters that you both play, they’re quite deep, aren’t they? There must be quite a lot that you can really delve into there.

MELISSA: Yeah. The two acts are really different, which is amazing and fun to play with. Act I is… you just don’t stop, it’s mental and there are lots of characters, and lots of fun and joy, and mistaken identity. Then you have Act II, which get a bit darker.

JAMIE: I think what’s great about the show is that although you have the spectacle, you’ve also got a truthful love story that runs a thread through the whole thing. So you get the massive expanse of the Moulin Rouge, and then the genuine connection between these two star-crossed lovers.

JEROME: And if people have seen the film and think “okay, well I know the story now”, it is worth kind of suggesting that there’s much more you can get from the stage show.

JAMIE: Definitely. We’ve sort of updated it since the film’s come out, because obviously more time has passed, so that’s why we’ve got these extra songs in there. I guess when you watch Moulin Rouge! on your TV, you don’t get immersed in the experience. There’s no pyrotechnics going off in your face. We’ve got Can Can seats, where people can sit at the front and be, basically, in the show. It’s amazing.

JEROME: I feel like, if you get this right, people will come out of the theatre and actually be kind of surprised that they’re still in the UK in 2023, not in Paris back in the day.

JAMIE: That’s the hope.

JEROME: If people want to come and see you, then how can they get tickets? Where are you?

MELISSA: You can go onto the Moulin Rouge! website, which is MoulinRougeMusical.com. We have two matinee days, so you can see us in the afternoons on Wednesday and Saturday, and then every other evening apart from Sunday. We’re booking till June 2023 now. I do have to say we were sold out over Christmas, even during train strikes, so I’d say book quick if you can, because it’s very busy and very sold out.

JEROME: Enjoy the afternoon. Good luck with the rest of the run! Really good to have you on and I think you’ve sold it to many people. Great to have you on. Melissa and Jamie, thank you very much indeed.

MELISSA AND JAMIE: Thank you!