Pigalle

Overview

For much of the 19th century and a good deal of the 20th, the Pigalle district in Paris — where the infamous Moulin Rouge lives — was alight with ideas. Its cafes and boarding houses were bursting with would-be artists, philosophers and wits creating and debating in equal measure. Then in the 1940s, with war ripping the country apart, Pigalle drop-kicked its academic hangers-on and became one of the most risqué red-light districts in Europe.

Equal parts burlesque, circus and discotheque, Pigalle transports audiences to a time of anarchic abandon and Parisian pizzazz. With an international cast of cabaret heavyweights headed up by Marcia Hines, this is a saucy and occasionally scandalous tour through Paris that other time that it sizzled.

Pigalle is part of Sydney Festival's dramatic and diverse 2019 program. Check out the full lineup here.

Image: Daniel Linnett