Wednesday 6 December 2017

"Cabaret"
Bilborough Sixth Form College.
One of the sexiest musicals ever. Why? well if you need to ask you've never seen "Cabaret". So now's your chance to see a slightly shorter version of the touring version.
The original 1960's Broadway musical version featured the wonderful Joel Hall as the Emcee and in 1972 the film featured Liza Minnelli as Sally Bowles as well as Hall..
Set in 1929 Berlin as the Nazis are rising to power, it focuses on the nightlife at the seedy Kit Kat Klub, and revolves around young American writer Cliff Bradshaw and his relationship with 32-year-old English cabaret performer Sally Bowles.
There's also a secondary plot which involves the doomed romance between German boarding house owner Fräulein Schneider and her elderly suitor Herr Schultz, a Jewish fruit vendor.
Having had the pleasure of seeing several shows by the Bilborough College students in the past, I knew that a high standard of production would be to come. I was not disappointed.
Alfie Sanders (Cliff Bradshaw) presented the newcomer to Berlin as a pleasant, albeit slighty naive, American visitor with his own brand of sweet talking to get the price he wanted to pay with Fräulein Schneider for his lodging.The naivety soon disappeared when he met Sally. Great change of characterisation when he realised what was afoot and Alfie found the character naturally. A pleasant singing voice as well.
Alice Lindley (Sally Bowles) was fantastic. She kept that quintessential British stiff upper lip accent all the way through, and that's not easy to do when singing.Delightfully cheeky and wonderful characterisation, especially in the song "Don't Tell Mama" and her version of "Cabaret" was excellent.
Archie Stephens (Herr Schultz) got his moment in the spotlight when at the engagement party with his comedy song "Meeskite", also showing that he could work the crowd. Far too young though to be playing this role, which is of an elderly nature, but maybe with make up to age him....possibly?
Molly Hewitt-Richards (Fräulein Schneider) could not have been more perfectly cast in my humble opinion. A very confident performance and she has a lovely voice with just the right amount of vibrato to add the emotion. Just loved the song "So What"
Joe Spoors (Ernst Ludwig) also got to show the two sides of the character, and what a dramatic change in the second half. Another very confident performer.
Imogen Birkett (Fraulein Kost) is wonderfully saucy and upfront about it as well,especially when Fraulein is caught with a sailor (Jordan Hughes) in her room and turns Fräulein Schneider's ultimatum around with a bit of gentle blackmail.
The hardest role to fill, apart from Sally's though was always going to be the one made famous over the years by people like Joel Hall, Wayne Sleep, and currently Will Young. The role of Emcee.
I've seen Young play Emcee and was impressed, but always saw Will Young as opposed to Emcee, if you see what I mean.
Sam Holden, in the same way as Molly as Schneider, was casting perfection. He was the man in charge of the show. he held us in the palm of his hand. He was like a naughty boy crossed with a devil and always in control, but always with that sauce on the side. I've seen Sam before in shows but this has to be his best performance to date character wise.
Directed by Sophie Boettge it was pacy and sexy which made the time fly by. It was over all too soon for me. It had light and shade and the pace of the show was spot on.
The choreography for this show was also wonderful, thanks to Sam Holden. The dancers, of which there were many when you count up the ensemble and The Kit Kat Girls as well made the job Sam had, not the most straight forward, but boy did they all pull it off!
The performance was set "in the round" almost with the audience of three sides, in the same way as they did "Les Mis" a few years back, and I loved that staging. This too worked very well and also helped the sound. Sometimes, when the orchestra is up above you at the back, there is a tendency, depending where you sit, to get an odd mix of music and vocals,
Setting the orchestra (the programme says "band" but they sounded orchestral) at the back of the performing area we got a very clear sound which didn't drown the actors voices one bit, making that all important mix as good as you're going to get.
Co Musical Directors Dan Gribbin and Nathan Holroyd did a cracking job of the soundtrack.
There are some brilliant songs in this musical, "Welkommen", "Two Ladies", "If You Could See Her" and
the title track among them. The omitting of "Money makes The World Go Round" and "Maybe This Time" was a bit of a disappointment for me as they are two of the best known songs from the musical, but I assume that this may have been for copyright or licensing reasons for local theatrical productions.
I must also mention the sound and light design and operation (Callum Roome, Alex Baker, Adam Kavanagh and Joseph Roberts) for a smashing job.
Someone who always works just as hard as the Director is the Producer, so thanks due to Sharon MacInnes as well
So many aspects of this character driven musical would not be the same without stuff like the wonderful, and saucy costumes from the wardrobe department (Isobel Fox), the wonderful hair and make up (Beth Haslam, Kristina Stead and Radina Gibb), plus the smooth stage management.
It's a story that is as topical today as it was back in the 1920's and 1930's with it's racism and class division, but as Emcee says, leave your troubles outside and welkommen to a couple of hours of fun and sauciness Berlin style.
"Cabaret" is at Bilborough College until Friday 8 December 2017, so if you have nothing to occupy your mind, then what use is sitting alone in your room, come to the cabaret and have some fun.

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