Thanks sunday and abbie. Brilliant. Just love th bit where it's said Will's the most in-demand popstar in the West End. :yahoo:

Thanks to Diz. :D

 

WEST END by Alistair Foster

 

Will: I could only do the West End in a proper musical.

 

WILL YOUNG has taken a cheeky swipe at dumbed-down musicals after making his West End debut in Cabaret this week.

 

After five platinum-selling albums and a number of television roles. the 33-year-old singer broke his West End duck in

Rufus Norris's Olivier-award winning production at the Savoy Theatre.

He plays the enigmatic Emcee along side Michelle Ryan as Sally Bowles. The former Pop Idol winner said he had waited

so long because he had not been offered the right part. He said: "The key thing behind doing my first musical is having

to believe in the project that I'm involved in. I've had a lot of offers that I have turned down."

"The thing about Cabaret is that it's such a pertinent story. To have the chance to work with the kind of people who put

so much into a production - Rufus and [choreographer]Javier [de Frutos].

" I think lot's of musicals don't get that sort of treatment. This is treated as a play and as a story, but sometimes people

cut corners and forget about the music. They think, 'Throw in a couple of high kicks in there and that's fine'. That's why

this is different."

He added: "I think there can be a misconception from from people going pop to musicals. For me to go from a No1 album

[last year's Echoes] into a musical is a much stronger position for me to do it. Otherwise the perception is that, 'He is not

doing very well so he is trying something else'."

Also making her West End debut is former EastEnder Ryan,28, who said: "Performing in the West End is something I've

always dreamed of, and this feels like the right project."

 

So glad Will pointed out what I highlighted. :D

Thanks for bringing that over TT.

 

There will still be people who think that way, regardless of how many no.1 albums he has had or will have :cool:

This made my night. :D

 

Text from my daughter's friend, a teacher in London.

 

Tell your mam, I'm watching Will Young in Cabaret, he's fab and wearing little clothing.

This made my night. :D

 

Text from my daughter's friend, a teacher in London.

 

Tell your mam, I'm watching Will Young in Cabaret, he's fab and wearing little clothing.

 

 

Lovely comment. :D

Arlene Phillips ‏@arlenephillips

On my way to cabaret and ready to see @will_young31 as the m c

 

Bit of a fan is Arlene.

 

Wonder what other celebs will be there tonight.

Should be a good night! :yahoo:

 

Must watch the tweets to see who else has been.

I've updated the Cabaret Reviews thread TT.

 

 

Thanks munchkin. :)

 

Saved me a job. Was waiting till we had a few more.

Can anyone bring across the Metro review?

Saved me a job. Was waiting till we had a few more.

Sorry :blush: It's just that I noticed there were a lot from when you were on holiday from the Lowry that weren't there, and added the couple that came in on Thursday.

 

Can anyone bring across the Metro review?

I've put it in Reviews TT - really really chuffed for him. I was steeling myself for the London critics, but they seem to have picked him out for praise :yahoo:

Edited October 11, 201212 yr by munchkin

Thanks munchkin & for the ones from the Lowry. :D

 

Must print them off to keep.

I've just been reading through the reviews (thanks for putting them up). Seems to be universal agreement, varying from the ecstatic to the begrudging, that Will was brilliant. :dance:

Daily Telegraph

 

Caberet, at Savoy Theatre, Seven magazine review *****

Will Young makes an utterly triumphant return to the stage in Rufus Norris’s production of Cabaret

 

 

Will Young as Emcee in Cabaret Photo: Alastair Muir

By Tim Walker6:28PM BST 12 Oct 2012Comment

The curtain rises on Cabaret to reveal the German word for welcome arranged over three lines in a gigantic Bauhaus typeface: Will-kom-men.

Given that this production represents Will Young’s stage comeback, it is a clever conceit, but, of course, it commits the producers to keeping the Pop Idol winner as Emcee for the duration of the run, or at least until such time as they can find another actor called Will.

His is a difficult part to get right, and, at the outset, I have to say I had rather assumed that it wouldn’t be too long before they would have to start hunting for a good Will. Young’s stage debut as Nicky Lancaster in The Vortex at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester had not, after all, been portentous: the young man conveyed the lines well enough, but precious little of the inner turmoil of the character.

That was, however, almost six years ago, and Young, who is first seen poking his head out of the letter “O” of willkommen, has clearly learnt a great deal about the craft of acting in the intervening period. In that single moment, as the spotlight falls upon him in his grotesquely heavy make-up, with his hairpiece brilliantined down, he makes an unnervingly sinister apparition.

 

Not long afterwards, he metamorphoses into a ticket inspector at a railway station welcoming Matt Rawle’s amiable American author to Berlin just before the beginning of the war. “I wish you a pleasant stay in Germany and a happy New Year,” Young says, with a satanic grin as he adds his final salutation.

There have been quite a few Cabarets over the years – in addition, of course, to the film – but this is the most compelling I have ever seen. All too often, it has amounted to little more than a mournful tale about the rise of Nazi Germany with, rather clumsily grafted on, a few big, brassy numbers like The Money Song and Maybe This Time.

Rufus Norris’s production, however, somehow manages to make its incongruous pieces fit together perfectly. The cast is a box of delights: Michelle Ryan makes a poised and rather endearingly old-fashioned Sally Bowles, and Siân Phillips is on typically scene-stealing form as Fräulein Schneider, who makes the mistake of falling in love with a Jewish tradesman. She turns What Would You Do?, one of the show’s lesser-known numbers, into a show-stopper of heart-rending intensity.

Theatre is seldom, if ever, powered by quite so much emotional and, for that matter, sexual energy. There are, too, some extraordinary visual flourishes – I’ll wager the final scene will haunt you long after you’ve left the theatre – but it is, ultimately, Young’s triumph. He is no longer a showboating television star, but a grown-up actor who somehow manages to wield it all together.

]Much to my surprise, he puts me in mind of no lesser a personage than Laurence Oliver, whose portrayal of Archie Rice in The Entertainer, with his powder-puffed skin and dead eyes, may well have been the inspiration for Young’s unnerving Emcee. Tomorrow does indeed belong to him.

To Jan 19; http://www.atgtickets.com

This article also appears in SEVEN magazine, free with the Sunday Telegraph.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre...ine-review.html

 

THIS is what I saw when I went to see it :yahoo:

 

The curtain rises on Cabaret to reveal the German word for welcome arranged over three lines in a gigantic Bauhaus typeface: Will-kom-men.

Given that this production represents Will Young’s stage comeback, it is a clever conceit, but, of course, it commits the producers to keeping the Pop Idol winner as Emcee for the duration of the run, or at least until such time as they can find another actor called Will.

 

Ha ha - that was what we noticed straight away :lol:

Edited October 13, 201212 yr by munchkin

Awh munchkin thanks for posting. :D It's an absolutely brilliant review. :w00t: :yahoo: :cheer: Thanks Daily Telegraph critic. :lol:

He's getting such great feedback from within the industry - the plaudits just keep coming :wub:

 

Nick White ‏@Nickernak

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Cabaret. @will_young31 bares his soul for a selfless performance. All drama students should learn this level of humility.

 

General Manager in the Entertainment Industry

Edward Seckerson ‏@seckerson

Rufus Norris' chilling production of "Cabaret" still makes the laughs stick in the throats of even Will Young groupies. He's VERY effective.

 

Classical Music, Opera and Musical Theatre critic with a long-standing career in British print & broadcasting media.

 

Ian Banham ‏@Ian_banham

@will_young31 incredible performance !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You are amazing

 

Choreographer / Artistic Consultant for BBC ITV and SKY 1 - Dance Master and Mentor for new RTE Dance reality TV show coming soon

Edited October 26, 201212 yr by munchkin

Thanks munchkin.

 

This has been such a brilliant role for Will. He's very wise isn't he. :D

Thanks munchkin. :D More great comments. Never thought he'd have most of the London press reviewing his performance in such glowing terms and almost fawning over him.

And this is Edward Seckerson's fabulous review:

 

Will Young at the Kit Kat

Posted on October 26th, 2012 — No Comments ↓

It should not be underestimated what Will Young achieves as Emcee in the current West End revival of Kander and Ebb’s Cabaret. In a sense the director of the show, Rufus Norris, has greedily capitalised on Young’s popstar status and turned his winning appeal into a secret weapon for what is surely the most unflinching rendition of the show that we’ve yet seen in the capital. Forget the skimpy lederhosen, the divinely decadent poses, the camp innuendo, the coy audience interaction – it’s Young’s killer smile that Norris deploys to lethal effect as it widens to accommodate those exaggerated German vowels and then, just when you feel secure in its jokey good nature and charm, twists by degrees into a grimace. In a sense we feel comfortable in his company, welcomed in every language – his fans are won over by his just being there, gamely going where he hasn’t gone before – until that moment at the end of act one where his chaste rendition of “Tomorrow Belongs To Me” grows just that little bit too insistent and someone paints a little moustache on his upper lip.

 

And so we look at him a little differently in act two – warily in that contentious number “If You Could See Her Through My Eyes” (she wouldn’t look Jewish at all) where Norris deflects the ugliness of the song’s sentiment by showing only a shadow play of “her” – until finally the screen comes down and what you see is not the befrocked ape you expect to see but still more shockingly a girl in an ill-fitting institutionalised coat bearing a yellow star.

 

From that point on we laugh differently, too, and when Young comes downstage ranting and cajoling in a jump suit replete with Nazi armband the hideous distortion of him, physically and vocally, is complete. It’s hard now to laugh at all. If you doubted the effectiveness of what he had given us up to this point – and I certainly didn’t – then you could no longer do so. Attention was going to be paid – or else.

 

It’s a clever show weaving the pretense of the Kit Kat Club through the grim reality of real life beyond its walls. And this production makes you realise how sanitised – though hugely entertaining – the movie was. Michelle Ryan’s Sally Bowles cleverly pits a powerful voice against the idea that Sally is anything but a finished artist. She sings with a kind of desperation which is very effective in countering the faux charm of her cut-glass Chelsea accent. The alternative Krystallnacht. And I should, of course, mention the extraordinary Sian Phillips’ Fräuline Schneider who so movingly nails the scene of her terrible dilemma: “What Would You Do?”

 

Norris’ final image is devastating. No musical ever ended as quietly or as grimly. But as Will Young turns his back on the audience for the last time he too is victim of a terrible irony that it would be wrong of me to reveal. Go to the Cabaret.

http://www.edwardseckerson.biz/asides/will...at-the-kit-kat/

 

And there's more....

 

A new invitation to “Come to the Cabaret”

By Judi Herman

 

 

It’s about 80 years since Christopher Isherwood’s stay in Berlin, which he documented in his book Goodbye to Berlin, giving an unsettling close up of expat life in the Weimar Republic and the rise of National Socialism and anti-Semitism. And it’s well over 40 years since Kander and Ebb’s evocative and daring musical, itself based on I Am a Camera, John Van Druten’s 1951 dramatisation of Isherwood’s writings about Berlin, first electrified New York audiences so that it ran for 1,165 performances and won eight Tony Awards .

 

The first London production, starring Judi Dench as Sally Bowles, opened in 1968. The film with Liza Minelli as Sally and Joel Grey as the EmCee hit cinema screens in 1972, won seven Oscars and made legends of Sally Bowles, the Emcee and the other denizens of the Kit Kat Club.

 

Subsequent stage productions have either built on the film’s extraordinary success (the 1987 New York production starred Joel Grey again) or have had to redefine the musical to banish its memory. London productions in 1986, 1993 and 2006 all succeeded in redefining the show and enjoyed great success. The 1993 Donmar Warehouse production, which turned the theatre space into the Kit Kat club with audience members sitting at tables, was so successful that a version of it transferred to Broadway, where a theatre was transformed into the Kit Kat Club and it became the third longest-running musical in Broadway history.

 

The current London production is itself a reimagining of Cabaret by the creative team behind the successful 2006 West End revival, director Rufus Norris, designer Katrina Lindsay, choreographer Javier de Frutos, lighting designer Mark Howett and musical director Tom de Keyser.

 

Coincidentally this summer Londoners have had a chance to see the play I Am a Camera in the intimate surroundings of the Southwark Playhouse, which in my review on All About Jewish Theatre I wrote was “so much more than Cabaret without the songs”.

 

Now London has a chance to experience Cabaret complete with songs again, with Will Young as the EmCee . It’s ten years now since he burst on to UK TV screens as the first winner of reality TV show Pop Idol and he’s built up an impressive CV on stage, screen and indeed as a ‘pop idol’ with awards and chart topping singles and albums. His is a carefully concentrated and calibrated performance over which he exercises admirable control. He glitters with menace from the moment Howett’s lighting picks him out to start the show. He clearly relishes the knowingly arch role-playing that comes his way, doubling as the passport control officer welcoming Matt Rawle’s Cliff to Berlin. The skeletal platforms of Lindsay’s sets allow him to dominate the action at the Kit Kat Club, where he rules supreme over his little kingdom of gender-bending boyish girls and camp boys. The analogy with Hitler is complete when he literally becomes their puppet master, manipulating them as marionettes on strings in a version of tomorrow Belongs to Me that certainly banishes any memories from the film of blonde youths in Biergartens. And if both this number and the climax of If You Could See Her (I should not give this away, but the notorious yellow star figures prominently ) do rather bang their message home, perhaps that is no bad thing for audiences, as the number of eye witnesses of the events of the 1930s and 1940s dwindles over the years.

 

The original ‘Sally Bowles’ was just 19 years old. In both Van Druten’s play and Kander and Ebb’s musical she is amoral and self-centred, a youthful escapee from a conventional middle class upbringing, whose appeal to audiences is the very Englishness against which she is studying to rebel.

 

Michelle Ryan, well-known to UK audiences as Zoe Slater in the soap drama East Enders, also has an impressive film CV and is no stranger to the stage. Musical theatre does not feature so much on her CV so it’s to her credit that she holds her tunes quite well here. She looks good and moves well and has a vulnerability which serves numbers like Maybe This Time very well. And if her hard edge is perhaps a bit soft around the edges, then perhaps her brittleness serves to hide an element of desperation - she knows she’s too far in to get out, even when Matt Rawle’s caring Clifford offers her a new way out. Rawle’s glorious singing voice (an extraordinary Che Guevara in Evita and a superbly swashbuckling Zorro in the musical of that name are just two of his achievements) is sadly underused, but he makes Cliff a rounded character, exploring his own bisexuality in a city where it’s not out of place – yet …

 

The older characters are especially strongly cast. Sian Phillips is wonderfully sympathetic as Fraulein Schneider, philosophically trying to make ends meet, sometimes a Mother Hen to her tenants, sometimes a would-be stern concierge. She and Linal Haft’s twinkling Herr Schulz are touching in their burgeoning relationship and Haft successfully avoids the schmaltz that can come with this role. Leaving out the song Meeskeit helps avoid a descent into schmaltz; and both Haft and Phillips achieve real dignity and pathos as the implications of marrying a Jew are made clear to her, not least by Nicholas Tizzard’s card-carrying (and eventually swastika-wearing) Nazi, Ernst Ludwig, all ingratiating heartiness with all comers - unless they happen to be Jewish. There’s a chilling reversal too from Harriet Thorpe’s Fraulein Kost, offering naughty comedy as the tenant with a disturbing number of male visitors in nautical uniform she claims as relatives, who turns out to wear her real heart on her swastika-clad sleeve singing the reprise of Tomorrow Belongs To Me.

 

De Keyser’ onstage band holds the whole show together superbly and Howett’s lighting works seamlessly as a vital complement to the effect of Lindsay’s set and the costumes moving on it.

 

For my money, de Frutos’ choreography is too elaborate, with rather too much going on, for instance in Two Ladies, where there seem to be too many ‘Ladies’, but it certainly banishes any memories of Bob Fosse’s work in the film. And although the sight of the cast undressing and undressed at the end, as if about to enter a gas chamber, seems unnecessary to me, there’s no doubting the effect it clearly has on many audience members.

http://www.jewish-theatre.com/visitor/arti...?articleID=3688

 

Cabaret at the Savoy Theatre – 18th October 2012

26 Oct

 

It has been a while since I’ve seen a production of Cabaret and I admit I have never been a particular fan of this show. I enjoy it with a good cast, I like some of the songs but I don’t find the story particularly gripping in itself. Plus a whole song about a pineapple always seemed a bit too much for me.

 

However, the prospect of seeing Matt Rawle on stage is usually enough to make me attend a show. For those of you who don’t know this musical: It’s set in Berlin just before World War 2 and gives an insight into the rather decadent German Cabaret scene at that time and its downturn once the NSDAP comes into power. Beside this we learn of the everyday problems of the people living in Nazi Germany and the vast contrast between normal life during the day and the “dream world” of Cabaret Clubs like the Kit Kat Club at night.

 

This production went on a short UK tour prior to its West End run. Therefore the set is quite simply and clearly designed for a touring production. But that doesn’t take anything away from the show itself. Cabaret has a strong theme and a good storyline and doesn’t need huge sets to work.

 

Will Young steps into the shoes of the Emcee, a part that is hilariously over the top on the outside and an extreme contrast to the serious undertone of the show. I admit I didn’t expect Will Young to be outstanding and I wasn’t completely convinced by his portrayal throughout act one. However, in act two he managed to amaze me with the range of emotion his Emcee displayed. Plus he has a fantastic voice which suits the songs perfectly.

 

Matt Rawle, my main reason for watching the show, makes a wonderful Cliff Bradshaw. He has got the most amazing stage presence and engages the audience completely whenever he is on stage. Actually I’m sure he would make a perfect Emcee as well!

 

Michelle Ryan plays Sally Bowles, the female lead of the show. Sadly she is the weak link in this production. Personally I found her acting rather bland and I wasn’t blown away by her voice (which is nice but nothing special in my eyes and simply not strong enough for some of the songs in the show). There is no really connection between her and Matt on stage. To me it looked as if she was just acting beside him and not with him.

 

A special mention goes to the delightful Harriet Thorpe who gives a stellar performance as Fräulein Kost. I liked Sian Phillips as Fräulein Schneider although I wasn’t convinced by her singing which was more melodic talking than actual singing. The rest of the cast do a great job. I loved seeing John Brannoch on stage again.

 

The German language in the show is quite good I have to say. Obviously you can tell that the people on stage are non-native speakers but considering how ridiculously hard German is their pronounciation is fantastic.

 

One thing that really bugged me was the sound, in particular Michelle Ryan’s mic. I have no idea if it was done intentionally but whenever she was singing her mic seemed to be turned up to full volume. As a result you could hear every little breath she took – and she was breathing a lot! Personally I found that rather distracting.

 

All in all this is a good show and definitely worth seeing especially if you want to watch Will Young being absolutely awesome in a difficult part. Be prepared for nakedness and sexual references on stage though.

 

http://confessionsofatheatregirl.wordpress...h-october-2012/

Thanks munchkin.

 

I've added the brilliant reviews to the pinned thread. :D