La Goulue

• 20, 24, 26, 31 January, 01, 03 February 7.30pm
  
  
• 28 January 6.30pm

£12 (£10 concessions)

24-hour Box Office:
020 7704 6665

Paris 1889, the Moulin Rouge opens with the dancer La Goulue (The Glutton) as its star attraction, her joie de vivre, arrogance and animalism on magnificent display. She becomes the highest paid dancer of her time with a circle of admirers including Renoir, Toulouse-Lautrec and The Prince of Wales.

On January 30th 1929 the death is recorded in a Parisian pauper's hospital of a vagrant known as Louise Weber, who holds a licence to sell peanuts outside the Moulin Rouge. Weber dies alone and unmourned insisting she is La Goulue.

A welcome return for this one-act play with songs from the period by Judith Paris (Brel, Weill & Lenya, When Florence Met Isadora, Rosemary Branch, Bridewell Theatre, Wimbledon Studio Theatre, New End Theatre).

With the magnificent Valda Aviks as La Goulue (Jerry Springer: The Opera, NT and the West End. Caroline Or Change, NT) and Michael Roulston as The Pianist (Blondel - Pleasance Theatre, Sophie Tucker's One Night Stand - on tour)

'Judith Paris deserves much praise for a remarkable story so well researched and told.'
Croydon Advertiser

'"The piece offers a fresh perspective on the history of the Moulin Rouge... the highly versatile Avlks singing and dancing through the dialogue.'
The Stage

'A tour-de-force performance as La Goulue with just the right amount of peasant canniness, stubborn stupidity and unsentimental toughness. And she delivers the period songs (newly translated by Anthony Cable) with engaging energy and humour.'
The Metro

'La Goulue exudes a heady mixture of ferocious sexuality and greed for life.'
The Guardian