Article: Things ain't what they were at the Moulin Rouge Nicole Kidman's latest film evokes the bawdy Paris of the 1890s, with high society mixing with rogues and prostitutes, all to the sound and sight of the scandalous can-can. But, reports JULIAN COMAN, today's reality is colourful, slick . . . and anodyne

Paris

It's five minutes to showtime at the Moulin Rouge. Dancers stretch beautiful legs along walls and bend their backs. Marissa, the female lead, gazes thoughtfully at a poster of her heroine, Marilyn Monroe, which is pinned to her dressing room door.

A small man with a moustache appears. "Ten minutes' delay, everyone," he announces. "We're still waiting on some coach parties." There is a collective sigh. "I expect it's the bloody Japanese," says a male dancer in a sparkling silver suit and holding a cane.

Things are not what they used to be at the theatre that gave the world the can-can. Foreigners rarely darkened the doorway of the 1890s Moulin Rouge, the greatest of all the rough and ...

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