Every now and again we get
“event theatre” that creates
a buzz with its spectacle or
bombastic cleverness. The
past few days have thrown up
two such shows — yet both
could have been even better
had it not been for some
slightly duff casting.
Cabaret looks terrific,
sounds pretty good and retains
its powerful “live and let live”
message. But Eddie Redmayne
is really not that great in it. His
character, Emcee, presides
over a fleshpot nightclub in
Weimar Germany just as
Hitler’s boot boys are gaining
ground. Emcee can be sexually
ambiguous, puzzlingly distant,
Cabaret looks good, Jessie Buckley sounds
better — but Eddie Redmayne is miscast
A velvet night
to remember
an addictive ringmaster of
vices as he narrates Kander
and Ebb’s well-worn musical
about the end of decadence.
Redmayne does the puzzling
distance thing OK, but that is
as far as it goes. There is no
doubting his commitment.
You can see his biceps quiver
with effort as soon as he steps
into the spotlight. But it’s like
watching the dishy flight
lieutenant play the drag part
on stage in a prisoner-of-war
film while Dickie Attenborough
is digging an escape tunnel
below.
This is unfortunate as the
producers have gone to a lot
of trouble. The drab Playhouse
Theatre has been transformed,
with cabaret tables abutting a
stage placed mid-auditorium.
Saxophonists play moody jazz
and skimpily dressed minxes
scamper about as you arrive.
It certainly feels indulgent.
This is a velvet night out.
As we follow the fortunes
of Clifford, a pfennigless
American novelist newly
arrived in Berlin, there is
little sense of period.
The threat factor^
is normally
accentuated by
an unfurling of
swastika flags but
not here; perhaps
Rebecca FrecknallTHE
CRITICS
wants her production to have
a timeless message.
Jessie Buckley is tragic Sally
Bowles, the English girl with
a weakness for gin and
instability. Buckley’s Sally,
less glamorous than usual, is
touchingly vulnerable. Her
slow build in Maybe This Time,
initially almost a whisper,
is the moment the show
ignites. But the whole thing
would have worked even
better with Redmayne as,
perhaps, Clifford, not Emcee.
The right-wing
controversialist William
Buckley was a trenchant
gadfly whose darting
barbs enraged
American liberals
from the civil rights
era to the Reagan
years. In 1968
Buckley and his
left-wing counterpart
Gore Vidal squared offagainst each other in
rancorous TV jousts that
became required viewing.
Those debates are the subject
of James Graham’s latest play,
Best of Enemies.
In the 1990s I met Buckley
a couple of times. He was
elaborately courteous, his
Waspy drawl peppered with
plosive words. Buckley was
catlike, quick, unexpectedly
droll, but David Harewood
here makes him ploddingly
monumental. Could they not
have found someone with a
tarter, more feathered sting?
It is worth watching a real
Buckley-Vidal debate on
YouTube. Subtler and nastier.
And yet this watchable show
is the most satisfying play of
the year, owing to its battle of
ideas. A fast-moving companyQUENTIN
LETTS
Cabaret
Kit Kat Club, London WC2
HHHH
Best of Enemies
Young Vic, London SE1
HHHHH
Habeas Corpus
Menier Chocolate Factory,
London SE1
HHHH
The Comedy
of Errors
Phillip Breen’s
modern-dress
take on
Shakespeare’s double-
mistaken-identity comedy
was a hoot at Stratford-upon-
Avon in the summer. Now
having a short reprise, it has
jazz, shopping and a frenetic
pace, with the farce led by
Jonathan Broadbent as the
comic servant Dromio of
Syracuse.
Barbican, London EC2,
until Dec 31MY FAVOURITE SHOWS YOU CAN BOOK NOW
THEATRE
Cinderella
Andrew Lloyd
Webber’s
Cinderella is
not your usual
bland goodie-goodie. This one
(Carrie Hope Fletcher) has Doc
Marten boots, goth make-up
and a vandalistic streak. There
are other cheeky plot touches
in this opulent musical. The
songs are catchy and the
second half opens with
a section of the stalls slowly
revolving during a waltz.
Gillian Lynne Theatre,
London WC2, booking to MayWuthering
Heights
Emily Brontë’s
family saga
on the
Yorkshire moors is given a
bold treatment by the director
Emma Rice. There is every
quirk in the book: crazy props,
exaggerated storm scenes,
fey humour. Brontë’s turbulent
tale is recounted amid the
jumble, and a youthful cast
hurls itself into the fray.
Touring production arrives
at the National Theatre,
London SE1, on Feb 3Anything
Goes
Cole Porter’s
ocean-liner
musical is
steaming back after a sold-out
run. I Get a Kick Out of You
and Blow, Gabriel, Blow are
just two of the hit songs to
enjoy as B-grade mafia men
hide behind funnels and
a stowaway woos an heiress.
Expect bright white teeth and
coitus interruptus. Touring
from April; back at the
Barbican, London EC2,
from July 15Pride and
Prejudice*
(*sort of)
Five spirited,
multitasking
actresses take on Jane
Austen’s classic romantic
comedy about the
marriage-hungry Bennet girls.
This inventive show, originally
seen on the Edinburgh
Festival Fringe in 2018, is
gently subversive while still
being respectful. Modern,
frisky fun.
Criterion Theatre, London W1,
until Aprildelivers caricatures from a
foul-mouthed Mayor Daley of
Chicago to a deliciously dim
Andy Warhol. Graham skilfully
melds verbatim debate extracts
with imagined backstage
scenes. We see Vidal (a rather
home counties Charles
Edwards) and Buckley plan
their attacks, Vidal with his
latest catamite and Buckley
with his high-wigged wife. We
see the news executives ratchet
up aggro in pursuit of ratings
— this was the moment that
small-screen political analysis
began its descent to the
shouty idiocy of BBC TV’s
Question Time. Parallels
between today and late-1960s
America, with its riots and
assassinations, can be
overdone, but it is striking
how little the arguments
between right and left have
changed. The principal root of
unhappiness, Buckley avers,
is that the left makes people
believe big government will
take care of them for the rest
of their lives. Buckley: “It
can’t, shouldn’t and won’t.”
What fun Alan Bennett was
before he went all twee and
Alan Titchmarch. Habeas
Corpus (1973) urges us to
relish life while we still have
snap in our celery. Patrick
Marber’s ace cast romps
through this frisky farce about
boobs and randy medics in
Hove. “It’s all guesswork,
y’know,” admits a quack,
reaching for his rubber gloves.
A magnificent, quivering
Catherine Russell establishes
herself as the new Hyacinth
Bucket. Dan Starkey plays the
lecherous Sir Percy Shorter.
Kirsty Besterman is the
spinster with a fake chest.
Audience wokies went rigid
with disapproval. I loved it. cMARC BRENNERLive and let live Eddie
Redmayne and Jessie Buckley20 19 December 2021