Cabaret

We make it down to London, the train journey surprisingly problem-free, take the tube to our Bloomsbury hotel, and check straight into our room.Such is the pace of our trips these days that the rest of the afternoon is spent resting! Still, the good thing is that we’ve made it to the capital at all! 

Tonight, it’s Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club - the Playhouse’s Theatre that’s been remodelled inside to resemble a Berlin nightclub. I’ve wanted to go since it opened with Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley playing the leads. By now of course, the cast has changed completely. Emcee is now played by Jake Shears, ex frontman of the Sissor Sisters - but in fact tonight it’s an understudy, Toby Turpin, who takes the role and does remarkably well. 

If you’ve been to this, you’ll know it’s quite unlike any other show. You queue up at the stage door and enter through the bowels of the building, immediately transported in the juxtapositional sleaze and glamour of 1930’s Berlin. Dancers and musicians wander around to entertain, the sounds of  klezmer/jazz emanating from various corners. There is a no photography rule from the moment you enter, a sticker being placed over your phone camera; this is a murky and secret world ……

We have a cabaret table right by the stage (ridiculously expensive, but we decide to go for the complete experience), have a tiffin-tin meal - not 1930s Berlin at all, but convenient to serve and eat, and sip champagne from coupe glasses - much more of the era. 

The performance is fabulous, singing, musicians, dancing - everything. Of course it’s entertaining, provocative, funny….. but it’s also timely, sad and thought provoking. Political control and irrational bigotry developing under the noses of people too close to things to notice. 

So, my blip is taken  all taken at the end, outside in the post-performance melee. 

Already behind with journals, I think it’s unlikely that I’ll get to see them until we get home on Monday night, so apologies in advance.