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Friday 5 - Saturday 27 June 2026
Paris, 1899. A penniless American
writer, a dazzling courtesan, a flamboyant impresario and a scheming duke walk
into the most famous nightclub in the world. It sounds like the opening of a
joke, but the story that unfolds is anything but. Moulin Rouge! The Musical
arrives at Sunderland Empire from Friday 5 June to Saturday 27 June 2026,
marking a landmark moment for the venue as the production makes its way across
the globe on its first ever world tour.
The show is rooted in Baz
Luhrmann’s 2001 film, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and went on
to receive eight Academy Award nominations, winning two. That film dazzled
audiences with its maximalist visual style and its jukebox approach to pop music,
colliding songs from wildly different eras into a single, breathless romantic
tragedy. The stage adaptation takes that template and pushes it further still,
building an entertainment that runs two hours and forty-five minutes –
including an interval – and draws on more than 70 songs spanning over 160 years
of music, from Offenbach to Lady Gaga. In total, the production credits 165
songwriters administered by 31 publishers: a feat of rights management as much
as artistic vision.
The story is, at its heart, a
love story told under pressure. Christian, a young bohemian writer newly
arrived in Paris, falls for Satine, the star performer at the Moulin Rouge.
Their connection is immediate and passionate, but the club’s imperious host
Harold Zidler has already promised Satine’s time and attentions to the Duke of
Monroth, a man of considerable wealth who assumes that money can secure
whatever he desires. Christian’s allies in his battle for Satine’s heart
include the painter Toulouse-Lautrec and Santiago, a tango dancer of formidable
reputation. What follows is part love story, part spectacle, part musical
mash-up, with the fate of the Moulin Rouge itself tangled up in the outcome.
Leading the Sunderland cast is
Verity Thompson as Satine, opposite Nate Landskroner as Christian. Cameron
Blakely takes on the role of the larger-than-life Harold Zidler, with Kurt
Kansley as Toulouse-Lautrec, Rodrigo Negrini as Santiago, and James Bryers as
The Duke. Kahlia Davis plays Nini, Ellie Jane Grant is Arabia, Scott Sutcliffe
takes the role of Baby Doll, Claudia Kariuki plays La Chocolat, and Ann Sophie
joins the company as Alternate Satine. They are supported by an ensemble of
twenty-five performers, including Joe Burrell, Gracie Caine, Alisha Capon,
Nathalie Chaves, Sol Childs, Kamau Davis, Martin Dickinson, Ike Fallon, Francis
Foreman, Tessa Fox, Lucie Horsfall, Sayaka Kato, Jacob Kohli, Nathan
Mariniello, Matt Powell, Daisy Quainton, Chloe Radford, James Revell, Phoebe
Roberts, Samuel Routley, Nathan Saxon, Fraser Stewart, Sorcha Stephenson, Craig
Watson and Frazer Woolcott.
The creative team behind the
production is formidable. Direction is by Tony Award winner Alex Timbers, with
choreography by Tony Award winner Sonya Tayeh. The book is by Tony Award winner
John Logan, who has also received three Academy Award nominations for
screenplays including Gladiator and The Aviator. Music
supervision, orchestrations and arrangements are by Tony Award winner Justin
Levine. The design work is equally well-credentialled: Tony Award winner Derek
McLane is responsible for the sets, Tony Award and Olivier Award winner
Catherine Zuber designed the costumes, and Justin Townsend and Peter Hylenski –
both Tony Award winners – handle lighting and sound respectively.
Those costumes deserve particular
attention. The production deploys over 300 costumes in total, incorporating
more than 1,200 different fabrics and trims, with over 200 pieces appearing on
stage on any given night. The level of decoration is extraordinary: more than
150,000 crystals are used across the show, with the costumes worn by Satine
alone accounting for approximately 20,000 of them. A single pair of Satine’s
gloves carries around 1,500 crystals. It is the kind of detail that audiences
may not consciously register, but which collectively creates a visual density
that is entirely deliberate. This is a show about excess, and the design makes
no apologies for it.
The show received its world
premiere on Broadway in 2018 and has since accumulated a remarkable awards
haul: ten Tony Awards in 2021 (including Best Musical), an Olivier Award, two
Drama League Awards for Outstanding Production of a Musical, five Drama Desk
Awards and ten Outer Critics Circle Award honour citations. It is currently
running simultaneously in New York, London, Cologne and Utrecht, as well as a
North American tour. The world tour launched in Edinburgh in 2025, and
Sunderland is one of the venues welcoming it as it travels across the globe.
Hamburg opens in November 2026, followed by a return season in Sydney in March
2027.
For Sunderland Empire itself, the
arrival of a production at this scale is fitting. The venue, which opened in
1907 after its foundation stone was laid by Vesta Tilley, has been the North
East’s principal receiving house for major touring productions throughout its
history. Operated by ATG Entertainment, it has welcomed West End transfers,
opera, ballet and major touring musicals, and its auditorium is one of the
largest in the region. A show of the scale of Moulin Rouge! The Musical, with
its elaborate sets, extensive cast and extraordinary costume count, is
precisely the kind of production the Empire exists to host.
Critical response to the show has
been consistent and enthusiastic wherever it has played. Reviewers have
highlighted the relentless energy of the performances, the ingenuity of the
musical arrangements and the sheer visual commitment of the design. The Mail
on Sunday described it as displaying “sheer high-octane energy,” while The
Observer praised it as “a whirling machine in which set, choreography and
music lavishly fuse.” The Times noted its “spectacle and a dash of
fairy-tale romance,” and the Telegraph, Metro and Sunday
Express all landed on the same word: spectacular.
Performances run Monday to
Saturday at 19:30, with matinees on Wednesdays and Saturdays at 14:30. The show
is recommended for ages 12 and above, and audiences should be aware that the
production includes strobe lighting.
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