This touring production of Kander and Ebb's 1966 Broadway musical does not shy away from the darker elements of the plot:
a chilling Tomorrow Belongs To Me changes the whole tone as a fleetingly ultra-menacing Will Young, playing the Emcee, meets a Nazi puppet master as the re-imagined Berlin of 1931 teeters on the edge of seismic change.
For those who remember Cabaret mainly for Liza Minnelli and her various stage props (black bowler and bentwood chair chiefly) this show's hauntingly bleak ending was far removed from that iconic picture.
The permissiveness of the cosmopolitan capital is exposed in a heady first half with a storming Mein Herr showcasing the talents of The Kit Kat Club's troupe and "the toast of Mayfair" Sally Bowles (played by Siobhan Dillon, yet another one of Andrew Lloyd Webber's discarded Marias).
Dillon's interpretation was less kooky than Minnelli's and her delivery in a regional English accent became less jarring as the show went on. Her rendition of Cabaret was a fatalistic and microscopic view of a woman on the verge of some dangerous self-harming - eerily so - whereas her initially muted Maybe This Time built into the wonderfully showstopping belt that it yearns - and needs - to be.
The older generation romantic subplot features far more prominently in the stage musical and veteran Lyn Paul excels as Fraulein Schneider, who ultimately opts for societal self-preservation. Headline act Will Young is arguably too cuddly to be the Emcee (he lacks the sleazy slipperiness of Alan Cumming or the hungry leer of the film's Joel Grey) but in both Two Ladies and The Money Song Young's burgeoning comedic talent is amiably showcased.
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