When you think of the Kit Kat Club, you think of desperate people in desperate times trying to scratch a living in a seedy little night club in Berlin. A city described by the dashing but square American novelist Cliff Bradshaw (Charles Hagerty) as “so tawdry and terrible”.

But Katrina Lindsay’s design is more Las Vegas than Last Chance Saloon. Mightily impressive, but its glossy veneer saps Kander and Ebb’s Tony Award-winning musical of much of its menace and grit. Both of which rear their ugly heads late in a harrowing finale. Prior to that, it’s a festival of debauchery.

That said, there is much to like in the latest touring production by director Rufus Norris. Particularly John Partridge as the Emcee who swings from slapstick and sexy to provocative and chilling at the drop of a pair of lederhosen. None more so than in the first act finale when as the string-pulling puppeteer of the Hitler Youth he conducts them in a hair-raising chorus of Tomorrow Belongs To Me.

The choreography of Javier De Frutos, for which he won an Olivier Award in 2007, is equally impressive as he manipulates the talented ensemble through a series of grotesque and angular gyrations which suggest the consensual torture of S&M as well as the enforced torture of Nazism. Though the comedy set-pieces such as Two Ladies are a tight as a corset delight!

And Anita Harris as the struggling landlady Fraulein Schneider, whose engagement to the “alive, but alone” Jewish grocer Herr Schultz (James Paterson) is short-lived due to his faith, imbues her role with great poignancy. Her performance of What Would You Do? one of the few emotionally-stirring moments.

As for Kara Lily Hayworth as Sally Bowles, she delivers the showstoppers Maybe This Time and Cabaret with the same purity of voice, mastery of technique and degree of subtlety that earned her glowing reviews in the title role of Cilla The Musical. However, for “a working girl” who has run away from home to entertain “in a pair of lacy pants”, she is far too sweet and strait-laced. Unlike Basienka Blake who sizzles as her “no sailors, no rent” neighbour Fraulein Kost.

But it is the terrific John Partridge who carries the show from the audacious opening to the disturbing denouement which shocks the audience into a prolonged period of numb silence before erupting into a well-deserved standing ovation.

It might cost you more than “a mark, a yen, a buck or a pound” (tickets range from £26.50 to £46.50), but Bill Kenwright’s glitzy touring production, which next week heads north to His Majesty’s Theatre in Aberdeen before returning to Scotland in April for a week-long run at Eden Court Theatre in Inverness, is in the words of the Emcee sure to “leave your troubles outside”.

Peter Callaghan
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