Music Review: Cabaret At The Kit Kat Club – 2021 London Cast Recording

CABARET – London 2021 Cast Recording (Decca Records).

Star rating: five stars ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

John Kander and Fred Ebb’s Cabaret seems to be a musical for all seasons, if not for all time. The latest London production may well prove to be the most successful ever. It is certainly the most original and immersive production in that it involves part of the audience being seated at tables and chairs and being served food and drink, because the Playhouse Theatre has been transformed into the Kit Kat Club where much of the show takes place. The original Broadway and London productions in 1966 and 1968 were controversial at the time because the show begins without an overture, something that most traditional productions always had. Bob Fosse’s 1972 film of Cabaret was also ground-breaking in getting away from the idea of a musical movie just being filmed theatre.

Since then Cabaret has been revived umpteen times around the world, but now it takes on a new lease of life and the excitement can begin all over again. The new Playhouse production opened in November 2021 on an in-the-round stage and no sooner had it opened than the run was extended to October 2022 and now it is expected to run until December 2023 and possibly beyond.

It has to be said that it is the unusual staging that is keeping the show running because, although the original cast including Eddie Redmayne, Jessie Buckley, Liza Sadovy, Omari Douglas, Elliot Levey and Anna-Jane Casey were the main attraction when the show opened, it is now the production itself that is drawing in the audience. It is no surprise that the Playhouse production won seven Olivier Awards.

That said and now listening to the new Decca album of the show, it is possible to understand why the original cast were so good. The songs by Kander and Ebb are a gift to any performer and from the word go – ‘Willkommen’ – the numbers excel themselves. Eddie Redmayne as the Emcee is an actual phenomenon. Did anybody know that he could sing? But then, he is not just singing but putting over a number in such an exciting way, that his performance will be a benchmark for any future actors essaying the role. Even through the recording of his songs – ‘Willkommen’, ‘Two Ladies’, ‘Sitting Pretty’, ‘If You Could See Her’ and ‘I Don’t Care Much’ – the Emcee’s evilly sinuous character comes through, a nasty writhing snake of indeterminate gender. It’s a totally winning performance.

Whereas in real life or via the imagination of Christopher Isherwood in his 1930s Berlin stories, Sally Bowles was not the greatest talent in the world of German showbusiness. Jessie Buckley imbues the character with a sort of innocence but also a knowing charm too. And Buckley certainly gives her all in Kander and Ebb’s gifts to her in ‘Don’t Tell Mama’, ‘Mein Herr’, ‘Maybe This Time’ and, of course, the show’s title number which are all heartstoppingly brilliant.

The supporting cast and the Kit Kat Club Band also do wonders with the music of John Kander that is redolent of the 1930s jazz-style music that Kurt Weill was writing – harsh, spiky, edgy, uncomfortable tunes that make you sit back and think about the awful Fascist times Germany was experiencing. In ‘So What?’ Liza Sadovy is very moving as the boarding house landlady Fraulein Schneider who has to admit that whatever price is offered for her rooms, she has to take it, as she has no other choice. She also has a tearful moment with Herr Schultz (Elliot Levey) in ‘It Couldn’t Please Me More’ when Schultz proposes to her.

In the past the character of Clifford Bradshaw, based on Isherwood himself, has seemed rather colourless but here Omari Douglas makes his mark in the ‘Perfectly Marvellous’ duet with Sally. Also of note is Anna-Jane Casey as the prostitute Fraulein Kost in the ‘Married’ song. It is a blessing that the new recording was made of a live performance at the Playhouse because it presents all the excitement of real theatre. Credit for this must go in no small part to the director Rebecca Frecknall, the music supervisor Jennifer Whyte and the sound designer Nick Lidster. If you cannot get to the show itself, the album is the next best thing.

Michael Darvell