John and I seem to have started quite an awesome New Year’s Eve Tradition. After going to watch Cabaret last December 31st, John proposed we go to see Moulin Rouge. I have seen the film a few times of course, so I was obviously up for it. What I didn’t really expect, though, was quite what a fantastic treat I was in for: as soon as the performance started at the Piccadilly Theatre last night, I was drawn into a world of singing and spectacle; proletarian revolutionaries and Montmartre whores, snapping into a vast array of pop songs and sophisticated dance routines at a moment’s notice. While I don’t feel like writing any form of in-depth review, this was west end theatre at it’s very, very finest.

In short, Moulin Rouge is a great piece of cinema adapted for the stage, resulting in a production which once again reminded me just how awesome life in this city can get. Yet the issue I have today was the same problem I had last year, and whenever I go to such wonderful performances: how can I recapture the sense of life and joy that I felt last night? It was a beautiful, heartbreaking love story, told through music and dance and humour: the tale of the doomed love affair between an English writer and a flamboyant dancer. The audience was pulled into the stage so that the whole theatre felt alive. One moment I was on the verge of tears and the next at the height of euphoria. It was the kind of experience you can only encounter in a west end theatre: impeccably timed, professionally performed, yet seething with humanity and pathos. I felt it resonated with me personally – as did, I daresay, everyone else there. Yet ultimately it was a truly sublime way to see in the new year, although to be honest my appetite has just been whetted for more.