Cabaret - Playhouse Theatre

Now they've had a week to settle in, any more thoughts on the new cast?

Hoping the next cast change is better than what I’m hearing about this! Glad I didn’t book tickets while Jake and Rebecca are in, I do have tickets for after they’ve gone though.

To those who've been (or at least heard), how does Shears play the MC? Subdued? Impish? Sinister?

...Oof. You reckon Rebecca makes up for that? Feels like the inverse of the MAP/Maude pairing.

Damn, that's disappointing. Beverley and Teddy are pretty much the glue at this point holding it together, the one time I've ever given a damn about that subplot.

Now if we could just get NIM out...

I will be waiting for the next cast change 😂
Any ideas who this could be?
I haven't seen this show since Eddie and Jessie!

Wanting to see Rebecca as Sally but planning around my own schedule/holidays and Jake's is always a pain. May wait til the new cast comes along.

The current cast is really good, but not as great as previous casts, in my opinion.

Some spoilers follow. . .

I've seen all the casts bar the second (Fra/Amy) as it felt too soon to catch them then after loving the first cast so much.

Of the Emcees I've seen, Jake Shears is the first to emulate Redmayne's performance. There is none of the relentless robotic muscularity of Callum Scott Howells, none of the rough human earthiness of Mason Alexander Park, none of the cold controlled malevolence of John McCrea.

Instead, Shears feels like Eddie Redmayne's impish otherworldly understudy, but without Redmayne's sheer. effusiveness and infectious generous fairy-like charm.

He does however bring an original religious quality to the role. He is wonderful in the first "Tomorrow belongs to me," for example, in which his eyes bulge with reverent awe and close prayer-like. He felt like a cult member.

He is even better towards the end, when he develops a bite that Redmayne didn't: his "I don't care much" was electrically infused with a hint of sadistic violence.

Self Esteem is a slightly muted Sally, which surprised me as I remember when she used to be Rebecca in Slow Club (my friend was a massive fan who saw them 30 times, and took me along twice, at Koko and at Union Chapel), and she was the opposite of muted in those days. In those days, the other half of the band, Charles, was quiet and easygoing, and she was the out-there joker, half stand-up, half rock n roll attempting to break free of her soft folk prison.

Remarkably her acting here is on point, given that she's not a professional actor to my knowledge. There are many colours to her performance, but where all the other Sallys I've seen have been big, she is smaller.

Her Sally feels like a perfectly contained ornament, like a miniature in a glass bottle. One possibility is that it is the restraint of an inexperienced actor, cautious against overplaying her hand, resulting in an excellent performance that is one size too small. It does pay off magnificently, however, for "Maybe this time," where her understatement carries a tragic poetic resonance. For that, she got an appreciative ovation.

And the early restraint pays off even more for her ultimate rendition of "Cabaret," which seemed to break the bottle containing her performance, revealing the inner out-there "Sally Bowles" persona that had been so present in her Slow Club days, and the show was immensely more powerful for it.

All in all, I might have rated this pairing more highly had I not had the contrasting experience of being completely blown away by wow-performances such as those given by Eddie Redmayne and Aimee Lou Wood.

So I'd rate this a strong 4 stars.

Opening on Broadway with Eddie Redmayne.

Sorry. I'm not very international am I!

Never too late to start! 

More European I'd say.
Like the song from Legally Blonde.