Book by Joe Masteroff, Music by John Kander, Lyrics by Fred Ebb
Directed by Rufus Norris
Richmond Theatre 4th May – 9th May

You exactly what you are going to get with a musical like Cabaret, an established musical, well aired as a film, so you know there will be some great songs, some great dancing and some very slick set changes.
This production does not fall short and with an established star such as Wayne Sleep (Emcee) you know you are going to be in for a good evening of entertainment. What particularly impressed me was the youthfulness and inexperience of some of the rest of the cast, the impressive thing being the professionalism and high quality of their performances.
Sally Bowles is played by Samantha Barks who is making her professional debut and what a debut. Already known to TV viewers having made the final of BBC’s I’d Do Anything she gives an outstanding performance belittling her youth and inexperience. Wayne Sleep might be the draw for the audience for this production but Ms Barks is going to be a very big west end star. But she was not the only impressive performance on the night, Suanne Braun is superb as Fraulein Kost, Theo Cook was very chilling as Hans, the young Nazi with the very scary ‘Tomorrow Belongs to Me’. Danni Bowen as Fritzie was very effective along with the magnificent Lucy James as Helga. This show is not just about young, new talent. Jenny Logan was fantastic as Fraulein Schneider with some superb renditions and backed up by the masterful Matt Zimmerman as Herr Shultz.

The story of Cabaret is well known, but it is very important that the production does shock the audience. The story comes out of the The Berlin Stories of Christopher Isherwood Mr Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye To Berlin in which he recounts a fictional account of his time in decadent Berlin in 1931. Berlin was the very height of decadence. The Weimar Republic had abolished censorship, licensing laws and very was an age of permissiveness unheard of in modern Europe. Absolutely no morality and absolutely anything went. The reaction to this was the Nazi Party, a very extreme reaction, but still with no morality, where anything went, but this time as the most extreme offensive act in the history of the world. The Nazi’s were anti anything that was not part of the Nazi party, the Jews, Homosexuals, the communists, how could this happen? It happened because ordinary people allowed it to happen; they could not believe that Mein Kampf would be the reality of the Nazi’s. Cabaret has to shock as a reminder to be vigilant at all times. I did find the last tableau very chilling as that reminder.

The decadence of the Weimar Republic was such that nudity on stage was very usual, in keeping with those times this play is not recommended for young people under the age of 13. Mind you it would be a useful reminder to those young people that Mr Isherwood, had he lived, would now be 105.
Reviewed by Evan Rule