Cabaret – 1,500th Performance

Cabaret | Kit Kat Club | Booking until 23 May 2026

Put on your party clothes and prepare to descend: Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club is celebrating its 1,500th performance, and it remains one of London’s hottest tickets. Originally the Playhouse Theatre, this West End house has been utterly transformed into Berlin’s most infamous nightclub. You don’t just enter; you creep down alleys, spiral through faux-basement corridors, and surface into an underground lair dripping with 1930s decadence and jazz.

They strongly suggest arriving very early – because the whole building itself is part of the show. Imagine stumbling into a beer cellar and finding a wild party in progress. Every floor has performers whirling, singing, and whispering invitations. In the basement lounge we were sardine-pressed, watching the band play German klezmer while people danced with each other – and even with the audience. Upstairs, club-goers pored over menus as our Emcee cracked jokes at the bar. It’s immersive theatre that feels as though you’ve gate-crashed a Weimar Republic soirée before the actual curtain even rises.

This was my second time seeing this production – I first saw it when it opened with Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley. There have been numerous pairings since, and this was a special gala to welcome the new pair, Rob Madge and Hannah Dodd, who are both excellent and make the roles their own. There was no sign of any copies of Joel Grey or Liza Minnelli (who was essentially miscast, as Sally is supposed not to be a good performer!).

The show is in exceptionally good shape. I was rubbing shoulders with the famous – Eddie Redmayne was there; Graham Norton was there; Layton Williams was there. In fact, they had invited back for this landmark performance all the Sallys and MCs they could find, as well as previous casts who were very boisterous. If this put extra pressure on Madge and Dodd, it didn’t show.

However, I was very pleased to see that when the show turned serious, the audience was very well behaved, and it became a really special evening.

This staging, directed by Rebecca Frecknall, has now stretched beyond 2,000 performances worldwide, including Broadway, making it officially the most successful revival Cabaret has seen.

Yet underlying the razzle-dazzle is a creepy, dark subtext. The production draws you into a seductive world only to bring you up short with the rise of Nazism and antisemitism in the 1930s – the element that gives Cabaret its punch. You leave feeling you’ve both partied hard and received a lesson in history.

The creative pedigree is legendary, too. Remember that Cabaret was created by John Kander, Fred Ebb, and Joe Masteroff in the 1960s, based on the Christopher Isherwood stories. I often wonder if anyone will try to revive the original Hal Prince staging again (that version had book scenes outside the club). It was innovative for its time and is due a reappraisal. But Frecknall’s immersive remix has become its own legend. Stage designer Tom Scutt deserves plaudits as well – he’s turned the old Playhouse into a labyrinth that feels like Gatsby-night meets Weimar Europe.

Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club proves again and again that it has an important message which, sadly, is just as relevant today – a show to make you think as well as entertain. If you haven’t already, make sure you come to the Cabaret soon.

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