The memory did not want to recall this cabaret the next morning. This production of the Christopher Isherwood story of the emergence of the Nazi regime in 1936 and its effect on the mixed gender cabaret life of Berlin failed to come to life on the stage of the Chichester Festival theatre. All the ingredients were there, but Roger Redfern’s direction and Bill Deaner’s choreography helped it stay firmly behind the bland faces of the cast.

The story is that of an American writer who meets an English girl in a supposedly seedy Berlin club called the Kit Kat and becomes involved with those associated with it. William Rycroft plays the writer Cliff Bradshaw with what is required for the character and showing that he can sing, and Alexandra Jay’s ample figure fills the frilly knickers of Sally Bowles and shows that she can also sing. The club’s sinister master of ceremonies Emcee is played by Julian Bleach with a rather too broken accent which at times becomes unintelligible. Brian Greene who plays the elderly Herr Schultz, a persecuted Jewish shopkeeper, steals the show with the help of Sarah Badel as his intended Fraulein Schneider — they show life and vigour and sing with quality. Richard Laing played the Nazi fixer Ernst Ludwig with what was wanted for the part. At times the chorus looks and dances as though they would rather be somewhere else which rather brought the show into slots where music is played and dances routines take place — the continuity is missing. The dance routines seemed to lack the naive gusto of what was wanted in nineteen thirties club society, and the songs by John Kander and Fred Ebb were not that memorable, with the exception of the all male harmony rendition of “Tomorrow belongs to me.”. All this happened in a stage set that lacked the atmosphere of a seedy Berlin club. The orchestra, unseen in the balcony, is so remote from the stage that their playing fails to be part of the whole and they have to settle for a handful of musicians on the stage.

The packed audience showed their polite appreciation when the show came to its inevitable end and went home quietly discussing what they had seen, but would they remember much about what they had seen the next day? Probably not. © BA

“Cabaret” is at the Festival theatre Chichester from the 25th of July until the 5th of October, 2002.