THEATRE REVIEW: Cabaret starring Jake Shears & Rebecca Lucy Taylor at The Kit Kat Club (2024)
By Neil Durham
WORTH A LOOK?: ***** RUNTIME: 170 minutes (including a 20-minute interval)
WHEN?: Saturday 30 September 2023 (matinee), booking through 28 September 2024
You may know Rebecca Lucy Taylor as indie pop star Self Esteem, this is her West End debut and she is, as her character Sally Bowles might put it, deliciously divine.
Read on for reasons including why Shears and Self Esteem make this electric production filthy gorgeous
But this is no stunt casting however and Taylor herself has written about her unprivileged background and stage school rejection.
On the platform formerly known as Twitter she posted: ’18 years since I left school desperate to get into drama school and become a musical theatre actress. I never got in obvs and an indie band, countless weird jobs, a solo career and an insane 2 years later I’m gonna be on the west end in the greatest production created by my favourite creatives in theatre. I keep crying about it all tbh.
‘Keep thinking about my Nan and grandad who would have finally seen me do a job that made sense to them. Keep thinking about how it cost a fortune to audition for drama schools and my dad would have to drive me down to London and how sh*te it felt to be told no over and over.
‘Thinking about how I got turned down at the first round of the Who Wants To Be A Maria telly show. How impossible it all felt. Thank you Cabaret team for putting me through my paces and giving me this opportunity. Oh and for the ppl online doubting if I can act – I’m going full House Of Gucci on this luv get a ticket from the 25th September onwards and see for yourself.’
Taylor wrote the music for Jodie Comer’s monsta-winning Prima Facie (Harold Pinter Theatre) and, like Comer, Self Esteem’s northern working class roots meant her showbusiness career would never be nourished by stage school education and instead only, ultimately, by on-the-job training.
Taylor plays Bowles, a British singer in Berlin nightclub The Kit Kat Club where much of the action beginning on New Year’s Eve in 1929, takes place.
Self Esteem’s Bowles is Julie Andrews played by Jennifer Saunders (Blithe Spirit, Harold Pinter Theatre). Her intonation is upper-class, straight out of Chelsea in London and, although she is not as physically funny as Sex Education‘s Aimee Lou Wood and her singing does not have the attack of Jessie Buckley, Taylor should be proud of giving a terrific performance.
We’ve now seen this production of Cabaret 7 times, including on its 1st preview in November 2021, and we can see why former Scissor Sisters frontman Shears would be so drawn to the role of the EmCee.
We saw him play at the Village Underground this summer at a gig longlisted as our concert of the year and he too is making his West End debut although he has played in musical Kinky Bootson Broadway.
The EmCee is essentially the role he was playing as frontman of his band and his casting makes perfect sense. He may not have the style of Eddie Redmayne, the theatrical experience of Fra Fee or youth of Callum Scott Howells but his stagecraft is honed by years of gigs both intimate and arena-sized and he brings new insight into numbers we’d not especially noticed before particularly I Don’t Care Much where he works really well with Taylor.
Shears gives us a cheeky bottom flash during Two Ladies and his EmCee is so effortless and on-point that we can’t wait to see him stretch himself further in the West End as we wait for the musical he has co-written with Elton John, the magnificent Tammy Faye (Almeida), to appear there.
Cabaret may have been usurped in our affections as London’s best revival byGuys and Dollsat the Bridge Theatre and the sadly now closed La Cage Aux Follesat Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, but this casting of 2 of our favourite pop stars has captured our attention and their performances are well worthy of yours. They appear together from 25 September through 20 January 2024 (Update: now extended through 9 March 2024) and Cabaret remains the classiest and most political of those brilliant revivals still running.
The casting of Shears and Self Esteem will hopefully bring a whole new audience to an electric production of a classic that deserves to be seen as we have done, time and time again. In the words of 1 of the Scissor Sisters’ best-loved songs, it remains both filthy and gorgeous.
Set in 1929–1930 Berlin during the twilight of the Jazz Age as the Nazis rise to power, the musical focuses on the hedonistic nightlife at the seedy Kit Kat Klub and revolves around American writer Clifford Bradshaw's relations with English cabaret performer Sally Bowles.
Cabaret has an audience approval rating of 87% on Show-Score, putting it in the review aggregator's “Excellent” category. Actress Jackie Hoffman, in her typical standoffish comedic fashion, called Cabaret's pre-show prologue an “immersive, but annoying, experience” via X.
We recommend that children younger than 13 do not attend the Kit Kat Club. Children under 4 will not be admitted. Everyone requires a ticket for entry. Can I leave the auditorium and re-enter during the show?
It's all too easy to expect great things when the show is a masterpiece like Cabaret: an exhilarating and ultimately chilling depiction of Berlin in the early 1930s that has been made into a classic movie and was revived exquisitely less than a decade ago.
The musical numbers performed by the Emcee revel in the decadence that serves as a metaphor for the political decline of the Weimar Republic, and the rise of the Nazi Party, which, in a few years' time, would be closing down establishments like the Kit Kat Klub and burning "un-German books" in the streets of Berlin.
But, of course, the West End where Cabaret is playing in a reconfigured Playhouse Theatre is a commercial enterprise. Theatre tickets are commodities and will be sold at the rate the market will bear. In an affluent city like London that means that prices are driven upwards.
The KitKatClub is known for its sexually uninhibited parties. Guests are allowed to engage in sexual intercourse openly at the venue. The motto of the club is "Do what you want but stay in communication". Patrons are diverse, including heterosexuals and members of the LGBT+ community.
The dress code is often described as “fetish elegant,” where guests are expected to incorporate elements of fetish fashion into their attire. Examples of dress code elements include latex, leather, vinyl, lace, corsets, uniforms, and more.
Content Warning: Cabaret explores sensitive themes, including anti-Semitism, Nazi-ism, racism, hom*ophobia, transphobia, sexism, abortion, and sexual content. This production includes depictions of domestic violence, physical violence, and Nazi and Holocaust imagery.
Set in a seedy cabaret called the Kit Kat Klub in 1929–30, the innovative musical tells the story of two doomed romances set against the emergence of anti-Semitism and fascism in Germany.
A cautionary moral tale deeply concerned with politics and the healthy functioning of society over the frivolities of optimism that often fuel the standard musical, Cabaret is an eerie tale of impending doom set at the dawn of a terrifying new reality.
At the 45th Academy Awards, Cabaret won a total of eight Oscars, including Best Director for Bob Fosse, Liza Minelli for Best Actress, and Joel Grey for Best Supporting Actor. The film is remembered for its unique blend of energetic musical numbers with darker themes like fascism and corruption.
Parents need to know that this Academy-Award-winning musical is chock full of sexual innuendo and frank talk about casual sex, both hetero- and hom*osexual. Main characters smoke and drink throughout the film while living decadent, if impoverished, lives.
5To facilitate the notion that the cabaret was indeed a metaphor for Germany, the Kit Kat Klub was created to provide a fictional burlesque theater as a forum to showcase a distinct narrative of Berlin hedonism, sexual expression and confronting social commentary.
Set in a seedy cabaret called the Kit Kat Klub in 1929–30, the innovative musical tells the story of two doomed romances set against the emergence of anti-Semitism and fascism in Germany.
The KitKatClub is known for its sexually uninhibited parties. Guests are allowed to engage in sexual intercourse openly at the venue. The motto of the club is "do what you want but stay in communication". Patrons are diverse, including heterosexuals and members of the LGBT+ community.
Address: Apt. 814 34339 Sauer Islands, Hirtheville, GA 02446-8771
Phone: +337636892828
Job: Lead Hospitality Designer
Hobby: Urban exploration, Tai chi, Lockpicking, Fashion, Gunsmithing, Pottery, Geocaching
Introduction: My name is Ray Christiansen, I am a fair, good, cute, gentle, vast, glamorous, excited person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
We notice you're using an ad blocker
Without advertising income, we can't keep making this site awesome for you.
