Cabaret - Review (From St Albans & Harpenden Review)

Cabaret - Review

3:17pm Tuesday 30th June 2009 in

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DELICIOUSLY decadent and dripping with drama, Cabaret has swept into town – and swept a packed Theatre Royal audience off their feet.

With some of the most favourite songs within its make-up this exciting and unique musical bursts with intensity.

Cabaret explodes on to the stage. And you are lit with its torch of passion And with the unmistakable Wayne Sleep at the helm you have one of the brightest stars of stage burning as bright as he ever did.

As a dancer he shows sparks of brilliance and he is the consummate stage performer.

Sleep is, of course, Emcee, the front man of the Kit Kat Club – the anything goes nightclub in 1930s Berlin.

Here also is English performer Sally Bowles played by Samantha Barks of BBC TV’s I’d Do Anything fame.

Cabaret centres around the story of American writer Clifford Bradshaw who arrives in Berlin only to be swept up into the last days of decadence and perversion in the German capital just as Nazi culture invades society.

He and Sally meet and live together as relationships both usual and unusual are explored in this highly provocative staging based on the stories by Christopher Isherwood.

Sexual deviance, overt behaviour and homo erotic tendencies are all brought to bare in this over the top look at one of the most sexually explicit eras in modern history. Not since Caligula did society witness such openly debauched times.

And as the rise of Hitler paralleled in these extremes you are brought a slice of history that would change the world forever.

Ant Semitic sentiments combine with a devil may care credo that leaves you with the foul stench of decay as Germany lurches into bancruptcy, Nazi dominance and ultimate destruction.

All this is wrapped up in the story of the singers and dancers of the Kit Kat and what happens to them and those around them.

With such enormous hits as Cabaret, Maybe This Time, Money (makes the world go round), Willkommen, and Tomorrow Belongs To Me, you have the hook songs to hang a magical musical on. And this is a magical musical.

Sleep is sensational, Barks brilliant. The entire cast cracking.

Tight, slick, saucy singing and dancing, this will have you both enjoying the feast and debating the serving after.

There is a real feel of being in a club at the ‘Royal you are that close to the action, the sets are superb and lighting immense.

Sleep steals the show as a sleazy Emcee but is front man to a great ensemble who work their socks off. Worth every penny of the money you pay.

Great theatre all round.

Paul Thomas Cabaret runs at the Theatre Royal, Windsor until Saturday, July 4. Box office: 01753 853888