The West End revival of the 1966 musical Cabaret has received universal acclaim from London theater critics. The creative team includes Joe Masteroff (book), John Kander (music), Fred Ebb (lyrics), Rebecca Frecknall (direction), Julia Cheng (choreography), Tom Scutt (sets, costumes), Isabella Byrd (lights), Nick Lidster (sound), and Jennifer Whyte (musical direction). The cast includes Eddie Redmayne (Emcee), Jessie Buckley (Sally), Omari Douglas (Cliff), Liza Sadovy (Fraulein Schneider), Elliot Levey (Herr Schultz), Stewart Clarke (Ernst), and Anna-Jane Casey (Fraulein Kost).
Redmayne and Buckley
Arts Desk (David Nice): Has there ever been a Cabaret as dangerous as this one? Rebecca Frecknall’s disorienting take on the Kander and Ebb classic pulls you in and spits you out in a reinvention that pushes or dissolves boundaries at every twist and turn. … Meticulously detailed, with a good eye for symmetries dark and light, and holding a fine balance between then and now — a cast with various gender identifications has, she says, brought its own experiences to bear — Frecknall’s production will surely repay several visits. Believe me, this is an experience well up to the standards of the very best you’d pay a lot for at Glyndebourne or the Royal Opera. So sell or tell your mama, papa, uncle, aunt, brother or sister to see it. 5 out of 5 stars.
Daily Mail (Patrick Marmion): John Kander and Fred Ebb’s musical is really about the feisty singer Sally Bowles (Jessie Buckley) and Clifford Bradshaw, the young American writer who becomes her lover — a revelation here in the form of Omari Douglas. The other big star here though is Tom Scutt’s astonishing makeover of the Playhouse Theatre. … Some of the best, damn near show-stealing, moments, though, come from Liza Sadovy and Elliot Levey as the aging landlady and her gently saucy Jewish admirer. … This eagerly anticipated new staging of Cabaret certainly looks good, sounds good — and runs like clockwork. 4 out of 5 stars.
Evening Standard (Nick Curtis): Wow. Rebecca Frecknall’s new revival of Kander and Ebb’s musical set in interwar Berlin is a stunning, breathlessly exciting theatrical happening. It feels loyal to the 1966 original yet astonishingly contemporary, and properly immersive. … The louche, gender-fluid ensemble, writhing in variations of lingerie and lederhosen to Julia Cheng’s sinewy choreography, and the female-led orchestra are impeccable. Again, just wow. … In this fine balance of spectacle and grit, decadence and despair, Frecknall proves herself one of our most exciting directors, and she draws superb performances from all involved. 5 out fo 5 stars.
Guardian (Arifa Akbar): Frecknall’s production on the whole lives up to its hype, magnetising us with flamboyant camp and then delivering menace that feels freshly charged. … Julia Cheng’s sinewy and soaring choreography is key to the tip from hedonism to hate: high-kicks start to resemble goose-steps and street violence is conveyed in a dance of outstretched limbs and a jacket balled in the fists of the performers. Redmayne creeps around the fringes of the stage when he is not performing, watching scenes from afar. If this show is sold on his star turn, we get more than our money’s worth with his blinding performance — in this blinder of a show. 4 out of 5 stars.
Hollywood Reporter (Demetrios Matheou): While Rebecca Frecknall’s offering bears a certain kinship to the Mendes/Marshall model … it confidently charts its own course. Transforming one of the West End’s smaller theaters into an intoxicatingly immersive space, and with its star pairing of Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley, this is spectacularly staged, fabulous fun — decadent, delightful and absorbing. … The phenomenally gifted Buckley is as much a sell for the production as Redmayne. … Buckley knocks the title song, “Cabaret,” out of the park, unleashing so much despair and anger and roaring defiance.
Independent (Alexandra Pollard): There is an air of dramatic secrecy around Rebecca Frecknall’s remarkable new production of Cabaret. … Redmayne is excellent, contorting his sinewy body and singing with a closed-throated vibrato and hammed-up German accent. The production belongs, though, to Jessie Buckley. … Buckley nails the nuances and jarring contradictions of Sally, who wears so many impenetrable layers of bluster and bravado that in lesser hands she could be hard to get a handle on. … Surely the most powerful moment — and perhaps the best musical-theatre performance I have ever seen live — is Buckley’s rendition of the title song. … Original director Hal Prince called Cabaret “a parable of contemporary morality.” In such capable hands, it’s a parable that still packs a punch. 5 out of 5 stars.
Telegraph (Dominic Cavendish): This is it. This is the one. At the end of the year, Rebecca Frecknall’s production of Cabaret … stands revealed as 2021’s kill-for-a-ticket theatrical triumph. It affirms the sensuous joy of performance after so much privation and brilliantly re-asserts the ability of Kander and Ebb’s 1966 classic … to send shivers down the spine; there are inevitable topical frissons too. … The intensified nature of Frecknall’s approach cleverly marries the work’s disparate worlds and, by degrees, the good times turn bad, the big-top sounds acquire a more militarised hue, and tenderness marches off. … Never mind “Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome.” I’d say, dig like your life depended on it into your pockets, and Gehen, allez, go. 5 out of 5 stars.
Time Out (Andrzej Lukowski): Come to the cabaret, old chums, and see the stage performance of the year from Jessie Buckley! Gasp at the terrific supporting cast in Rebecca Frecknall’s luxury revival of Kander & Ebb’s musical masterpiece, foremost Omari Douglas’s passionate, tender, little boy lost Clifford! Be wowed by Tom Scutt’s literally transformative design! … It’s a lot. There’s the Hollywood superstar off doing his own thing. There’s the radical redesign of the theatre, and the bells and whistles that come with that. … And then the actual, brilliant, chilling story of Cabaret, superbly realised, with a performance from Jessie Buckley that deserves to win awards. 4 out of 5 stars.
Variety (David Benedict): The triumph — that’s not too strong a word — of director Rebecca Frecknall’s stunner of a production is that, despite piercing performances from Jessie Buckley and Eddie Redmayne, her supremely intelligent, emotionally draining vision of the show turns it, enthrallingly, into “All About Berlin.” … Designer Tom Scutt hasn’t just re-routed the building; he’s re-conceived the auditorium. Out goes the proscenium arch and the entire fabric and texture. It’s now a dimly lit Art Nouveau palace of faded grandeur. … For once the overworked term “immersive” is entire justified and the mood feeds the interpretation.