Cabaret Musical- London With Eddie Redmayne

[AntonyJ]

Last week on a short trip to London, we also went to see this show, on at London's Playhouse Theatre.

We stayed at the Premiere Inn "Hub" hotel (officially known as the Covent Garden one) on St Martin's Lane. This meant we had a 10 minute walk to the theatre.

Alas no pictures allowed inside, so only a few outside to share. The ones inside are stock ones off the internet.

We were told to arrive at the theatre about 45 mins before curtain, to allow for COVID tests to be checked, and also to be shown to our seats in rather a unique way.

If you had mobility issues they took you to your seats via a more direct route.

For the rest of us we snaked into the place via a fire door, that too us into the bowels on the theatre.

We then slowly moved through the corridors, lined with “curtains” made like a fine chain (hard to describe but you know those keyrings with a tiny chain on, made of tiny metal balls – that type of thing).

You go round one corner and there was a small jazz group playing in a alcove, with this fine chain curtain in front, smoke in the air – all very atmospheric and ……… seedy.

We stopped at one point to pick a drink (free) to take into the show – am boring so got bottle of water.

We got to our seats, but for the first time ever, I had plenty of leg room.

Before the show opened they redeveloped the theatre to put the stage in centre with main stalls / balcony seating on 2 sides, and the orchestra upstairs on the other two sides with the few very expensive “boxes” underneath.

On the 2 main sides the stalls seating was split into 2 parts, the front two or three rows had a table each, with a table lamp, a phone (to be used as part of show for some) and food (well nibbles) and drink was brought to them before the show started and at the interval.

Behind them we sat in the more normal stalls but all these seats had a thin “bannister” in front of them, where you could rest your drink, and I had plenty of room for my legs – it was a joy not to sit “side saddle” at a show!

Before the show started, there was a few of the actors moving around the people in the stalls, having fun with them and being quite seedy in general in dances and poses. One thing to note is that if you leave your seat during the performance you can only get back to it at the interval or after the show ends – as the performers use the walkways to seats to enter and leave the stage.

The stage is very small, and there is no scenery that comes on and goes, think the most you saw was a few suitcases at some point – but the show did not suffer for it, in fact it was my partner that pointed it out to me after the show ended.

I do not want to give too much away but I really enjoyed the show a lot, it felt very intimate being so close to the stage and they all did a great job.

Eddie Redmayne is a fine singer and his MC is very different performance, I was lucky enough to see the show in New York with Alan Cumming a few years ago and I slightly give the edge to Alan.

Eddie was more…. comedic and contorted his upper body and arms into shapes, where Alan had more of an edge to him.

I also thought the “Gorilla” song had more of a SLAP in your face at the end in NY, than this one did – but that is of course personal.

Anyway, was a great show and along with the Faberge exhibition at the V&A, made our couple of days in London good fun.