Brittany Spanos

The musical leans a little too heavily on the 'charm' part of Ike; one of rock's greatest villains feels more like a cartoonish Sixties eccentric in this light, and Watts seems to be doing an impression of Eddie Murphy doing an impression of Ike Turner throughout his performance. While we get a firm sense of Ike's ego - the fear of being forgotten by everyone is never lost in the fabric of his story - his id feels not only superficial but paper thin.

Entering the red light-coated Al Hirschfeld Theatre, with the stage flanked on either side with a giant red windmill and a large elephant's head, you're immediately asked to immerse yourself in the dreamlike, fantastical world of Baz Luhrmann's 2001 romantic tragedy Moulin Rouge! As its musical adaptation blazes forth with a whiplash-inducing 70 songs, flashy can-can dancers and bohemian ideals, the fantasy is forced to be grounded in reality and loses some of the film's spectacular spectacular-ness in the process.