Cancan? We did!

INTERESTING invention, the telephone. You never quite know what to expect when it rings. It could be anyone. This time, it was the most deliciously sexy voice I've ever heard - soft, husky and exquisitely French. Best of all, she was asking for me. "Could I speak to Stephen Lewis, please?"

"Speaking."

"Zis is ze Moulin Rouge in Paris."

Astonishing, how quickly a man can melt. Until I heard that voice, I'd never had the slightest interest in visiting the Moulin Rouge.

Suddenly, I had this overwhelming urge to jump on the first Eurostar train heading that way.

But I resisted. Why she she was calling was to give me the phone number of York's own Moulin Rouge dancer, Samantha Brown.

Samantha was pictured on the front page of the Evening Press earlier this week, dancing - along with some of the other girls from the Paris show - for Prince Charles at the glitzy London premiere of Baz Luhrmann's new film, Moulin Rouge.

Who better to ask how the film compares to the real thing?

No problem, the sexy French voice told me, giving me Samantha's number in Paris. Just don't call her too early. She was dancing last night, so she will be sleeping.

Samantha's voice, when she answered from her flat in Paris's Seventeenth Arrondissement, was a curious mixture of Yorkshire and Australian.

She worked in America as a dancer for three years before coming to the Moulin, the 24-year-old from Dringhouses explained - and a lot of her 'fellow' dancers were Australian. So her accent had got a bit mixed up.

She had been dancing until 1.30am the night before - the time the second of the evening's two shows finished. Back to the normal routine, she giggled, after zipping over to London to perform for Prince Charles on Monday night.

"That was quite scary. There were loads of press there, loads of TV cameras. We were in a hotel next to the cinema, and the crowd went crazy when Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor arrived. Then Prince Charles came. It was amazing."

Had she seen the film? "Yes. I really enjoyed it." She says it is set in an era, when the Moulin Rouge was very different from now. Back then, it was a chance for upper class Parisian men to meet sexy lower-class dancing girls. Nowadays, says Samantha, it is really a cabaret show - and much more innocent.

It's still a glamorous lifestyle, though, - even if the tourists who make up most of the clientele now only get to see one side of the picture.

"When you're on stage and in your costume, you do look very glamorous," she says. "But backstage, it's all rushing around, changing your costume, doing your hair..."

There must be something in the air in dear old, staid old York - because Samantha's not the only local lass to have danced at the Moulin.

Go for a drink most evenings at the Rose and Crown in Lawrence Street, and chances are your pint will be pulled by a tall, blond, good-looking young woman called Kelly.

Kelly is landlord Paul Carey's wife. She now teaches dance at her mum Patricia Veale's dance school in Acomb - but until a few years ago, the 31-year-old was a professional cabaret dancer. She danced in some of the most exotic places in the world - the Bahamas, Japan, Spain, Switzerland - and, for two glorious years from 1992 to 1994, at the Moulin Rouge.

They were the best years of her life, she sighs, obviously envying Samantha - and every bit as glamorous as the film and the legend would have you believe.

As a dancer there, she lived a whirlwind life of photoshoots and TV appearances, followed by two performances a night, starting at 8pm and going right through until almost 2am. It was gruelling work: but she loved it.

Kelly says the Moulin Rouge is very French, very elegant, and very, very sexy - without being seedy.

"It's all red, all Toulouse Lautrec paintings, very French, very warm," she says, sitting in a room at the back of the Rose and Crown. "It's not like a theatre where everybody comes in and sits in their seats. It's more a nightclub, but very wealthy, very classy. You go in, sit at a table, drink champagne. It does have that sexy kind of feel to it, but it's not at all seedy."

There is nothing sleazy about working there either, despite it's reputation, says Kelly. The legendary nightclub's style is a combination of French elegance, theatre and history, with just a hint of gallic naughtiness. Some of the girls, though not Kelly, did dance topless, she admits - but in a very French way that was pure style.

"In the Moulin it doesn't actually matter if you've got your top off," she says. "Topless dancers in France get a lot more respect than here. The whole environment was beautiful. But that's Paris for you, that's the French!"

The twice-nightly two and a half hour show featured four big 'sets' and up to 12 costume changes, interspersed with guest acts to give the girls time to change. The big numbers included, of course, the cancan, but also a Viennese waltz scene with the dancers in flowing ballroom gowns and a big, big finale, with ostrich-plume headwear and sequinned costumes. It was exhausting but Kelly says she was never more alive than when she was on stage.

"It used to get very hot, especially in summer, because the Moulin is a very old building, and there wasn't any air-conditioning.

"The French cancan is pretty energetic, almost aerobic, and in summer you would get absolutely soaked. You'd come to put your costume on for the second show and it would still be soaking. But you didn't notice how tired you were. The adrenaline just made it brilliant.

"Coming out on that stage, with 800 to 1,000 people out there, you just came alive. You'd feel all your troubles, all your pain, everything that was going on, would all be just gone and you would feel on top of the world."

Sometimes, after the second show finished at 2am, she and the other girls would be so buzzing with excitement they would go for a meal, or on to another nightclub.

"At the weekends, Paris goes on until 7am," says Kelly with a wistful look in her eyes.

"You would be so hyper that, even though you'd be quite tired, you would get that second wind and not want to stop."

All a far cry from York, sadly. Kelly's very happy, though, helping her husband at the pub and teaching at her mum's dance school. She has absolutely no regrets.

Watching the film will bring mixed feelings, even so.

"I'm dying to see the film," she says. "But it will certainly bring back some memories. There's no other show like it in the world." You can almost see the dancer in her just itching to get up on that stage one more time.

Updated: 13:00 Friday, September 07, 2001