Cabaret - Sheffield Lyceum, January 19, 2009
When lead roles involve veteran celebrities and pretty young competitors from recent TV singing competitions, we might wonder, perhaps, if casting choices are being made as much in a bid to increase audience numbers as in an effort to find performers who are perfect for the parts. Once the show begins, of course, we soon find out.
In this Production of Cabaret it certainly turns out that the best singing, dancing and acting come neither from veteran dancer Wayne Sleep who plays the Kit-Kat Club's degenerate MC (Emcee), nor from TV show's third best Nancy, teenager Samantha Banks. As streetwise cabaret artiste Sally Bowles, Samantha lacks sufficient depth to make her character convincing and thereby fails to develop or engage. Wayne Sleep likewise is never quite a truly convincing cabaret host and, though his banter with the audience is well received, he interacts as Wayne Sleep, not as Emcee. With his pirouettes, he's still a star turn, but it's a younger body double who performs the flying leaps.
In fact, although totally competent, for all its lights, tinsel, bare bottoms and suspenders, plus its slick deployments of sliding ladders, bedsteads and stairs, some outrageous spot-lit sex simulations and a truly massive WILLKOMMEN, the show is still somewhat lacking in the sparkle and charisma that would give it the full impact it needs to earn an encore. Admittedly, the excellence of the film, even though made long ago, is an difficult act to top, especially as we're harder to shock these days, but as we watch this version, we remain, much of the time, far too aware that we are sitting in a theatre, watching a show. A shiny external veneer onstage is all very splendid, but if our main characters lack the warmth, soul and conviction that should come from deep inside them, then we lack the major well-rounded, believable individuals who might draw us fully into their lives and make us care.
Plenty of praise can still be offered, however. Jenny Logan, though less of a singer, brings to life quite wonderfully the delightful landlady Fr ulein Schneider, somewhat reminiscent, in comic scenes, of Jean Alexander's Auntie Wainwright in Last of the Summer Wine. Her gentle romance with the gallant, gentlemanly and equally well-played Herr Schulz (Max Zimmerman), is so captivating that the fate of this couple becomes more crucial to the audience than the fate of Sally Bowles and co.
Most impressive singer of the show is Theo Cook, his tantalising tenor tones bringing a chill to Tomorrow Belongs To Me. The build-up of sickening Nazi infiltration and violence works well, partly thanks to a believably nasty Nazi Ernst Ludwig (Karl Moffat) and his ubiquitous thugs, and to Fr ulein Kost (Suanne Braun), one of those drawn in by the regime.
Two more star performers are the mesmerisingly, inconceivably long and beautiful, high-kicking legs of Helga (Lucy James.) Surerly, she'll go far - just in one stride!
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