Thanks once again TT. :D Great reviews.

Theatre Corner - Daily Mirror

 

The role of Emcee could have been written for Will Young. He plays it to a tee, camping it up superbly.

 

This production of Cabaret is a must see for both fans of the 1972 Bob Fosse film and those new to the story.

 

The stage sets are simple but portray the seediness of the Kit Kat Klub in context with the darkness of 1930s Berlin perfectly.

 

Michelle Ryan plays Sally Bowles a little straight but she sings beautifully.

 

This has a dark undercurrent which runs throughout but is a must for anyone who loves theatre.

Another good one eh TT. :dance: Who would have thought 10 years ago that he would be where he is now. We hoped back then, and he has proved us right despite all the detractors (and the Brits Committee :arrr: :lol: ). And he did it "His Way".

Another good one eh TT. :dance: Who would have thought 10 years ago that he would be where he is now. We hoped back then, and he has proved us right despite all the detractors (and the Brits Committee :arrr: :lol: ). And he did it "His Way".

 

and that makes it all the more sweeter. :)

 

 

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

 

Sunday Times.

 

 

Sunday Times 14th October

Cabaret Belongs to Him

Will Young camps it up a treat in a superbly staged show that tries hard to be raunchy, says Christopher Hart.

 

Life is a Cabaret old chum and if you’re heading off for some decadence and debauchery at the Kit Kat Club you most definitely want Will Young as your Master of Ceremonies. If you didn’t have a strong view on the Pop Idol before now, you surely will after seeing his grotesquely enjoyable performance in this slick and powerful revival. He minces and preens, grins and gurns, sings sublimely (of course) and shows sure signs that he could be a fine straight actor, given the right role.

He’d stand out as a bit camp at Elton John’s birthday party. For The Money Song, he appears in a black velvet suit, bizarrely stuffed and bulging with balloons: a monstrous overweight burgher or banker straight out of a painting by George Grosz, dribbling, drooling and literally devouring banknotes before our eyes as he dances.

 

Yet even as this Master from Germany takes us, the adoring audience, in the palm of his hand, and we slavishly adore him, laugh with him, spellbound by him, should we be wondering just who he is, and where he is leading us, his faithful followers? Because it is the Emcee who appears at the end of Act 1 to sing that most thrilling chilling of all musical numbers, Tomorrow Belongs to Me.

 

Whilst he is standing on the podium, singing that weirdly lovely tune about sun-warmed meadows and the gold of the Rhine, a girl pops up from down below, whips off his hat to reveal a slicked-down, strangely familiar side parting and draws a stubby little moustache on his upper lip. The dirndled and lederhosened boys and girls around the foot of the podium are his puppets on visible strings, and they jerk to life as he begins to weave his spell with two large puppet-master’s hand frames shaped like black swastikas. As the song reaches its stridently confident climax, and the boys and girls prepare to march forth and conquer the world for national socialism, their Master raises the swastikas high and we see their undersides are blood-red.

 

Superbly conceived and staged as this production is – a reprise for the director Rufus Norris, who previously directed it in 2006 – if you’re looking for a Cabaret full of Marlene Dietrich, Blue Angel-type smoky suggestion and sensuality, the erotic more than the straightforwardly porno, it’s not your lucky night. Javier de Frutos’s fruity choreography goes for the “more is more” approach, and the raunch is explicitly in your face. Within the first five minutes, you have buff young fellows in tiny leather shorts simulating giving it to stockinged young ladies with splayed thighs, both fore and aft, as well as crotch-grabbing, cunnilingus, threesomes, and the full array of polymorphously perverse combos and scenarios. It’s impossible to shock the bourgeoisie nowadays, of course, but you might still long for a little more subtlety.

 

That said, there’s something palpably strained and desperate just under the surface of all the pleasure-seeking – these orgiastic, coke-tooting show-offs and libertines are not at the opposite end of the spectrum to the repressive Nazi regime to come, as they might fancy. Far from it. Extremes beget extremes, and this Cabaret is fully aware of how periods of self-indulgent decadence can provoke a longing for more order, then brutal tyranny.

 

As well as Young’s manic Emcee transmogrifying into a little Hitler, we later see one of the Kit Kat girls, still sexily stockinged, joining in with the storm troopers to beat up the young American writer character, Clifford Bradshaw, adding a disturbing layer of genuine sadism to their fascist thuggery . This Cabaret is full of such dark and resonant touches.

Michelle Ryan, who plays Sally Bowles, has a superb voice, and belts out Mein Herr and Perfectly Marvellous with satisfying gusto, but her acting doesn’t give us a believable Sally with any great depth. Sometimes she’s a bouncy, breathless overgrown schoolgirl who won’t stop talking, sometimes she’s a little girl lost, and you have to be impressed by the way she keeps singing, at one point, while doing a cartwheel. But we never really feel the spell of her melancholy or her wounded charisma.

 

Matt Rawle, as Clifford, is quietly convincing, but his love affair with Sally is nowhere near as poignant as that between the elderly Fraulein Schneider (Sian Phillips) and Herr Schultz (Linal Haft). “Balding with heartburn”, “alive but alone”, Haft’s Schultz may not have the strongest voice here, but that only makes his hesitant devotion to the Fraulein more touching.

 

There’s a Kit Kat Club again now in Berlin, by the way, founded by an Austrian porn film director, with a dark room, fetish nights, orgies and so on. It promises ‘Parties for civilised people!’ Let’s see where that takes us.

Daily Star

 

CABARET, SAVOY THEATRE, LONDON

 

ABOVE: Will Young's a revelation as creepy Emcee It really is at the level of Heath Ledger in Batman, such is his complete immersion in the part

14th October 2012 By JOE MOTT

MR KNOW-IT-ALL

 

I NEVER thought I’d be mesmerised watching Will Young perform.

 

His voice has always been unique and strong, although he wasn’t making music for me.

 

But starring in the stage version of Cabaret, he is staggeringly good.

 

Set in pre-war Berlin, the show documents an old couple and a young couple falling in love against the backdrop of the Kit Kat Kabaret club – a decadent, anything-goes place oozing with promiscuity.

 

I haven’t seen so many open legs or thrusting crotches since Madonna got carried away with that Sex book.

 

EastEnders star Michelle Ryan takes on the role of vulnerable temptress Sally Bowles who falls for bisexual American Clifford Bradshaw – an author caught in the swinging scene.

 

Her singing voice is strong enough, although the most poignant romantic songs and moments are reserved for old-timers Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz.

 

But it is Will’s masterful portrayal of the club’s Emcee that dominates this production.

 

It really is at the level of Heath Ledger in Batman, such is his complete immersion in the part.

 

He’s a grimacing, dribbling, crotchgrabbing pervert, sneering, screaming and tormenting the audience as he transforms from an initially comic character to mirror the increasingly sinister feel of the show.

 

His voice has never sounded so ugly as when singing Tomorrow Belongs To Me with the Nazis about to come to power.

 

How he has the control to take his performance down to a chilling, tinyvoiced end I don’t know but whatever the big theatre awards are, he should win one.

 

Most of the older critics have compared it with productions of yesteryear when so-and-so starred wonderfully etc…

 

As a non-seasoned theatre-goer, I am not burdened with such baggage and can enjoy it for what it is.

 

If I had an extra star I’d give it to Cabaret.

 

If you have a relative in London, find a reason to visit and take in this show.

 

The Verdict: 5/5

 

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/columnists/v ... re-London/

 

 

 

THEATRE REVIEW: CABARET, AMERICAN IDIOT, LUNGS AND THIS HOUSE

 

 

Will Young is outstanding as the creepy Emcee

 

Sunday October 14,2012

By Mark Shenton

Have your say(0)

THIS has been a week for knock-your-socks-off theatre: art of originality and constant surprises, whether on a major scale or a tiny one.

In 2006, director Rufus Norris and choreographer Javier de Frutos stripped the glamour and glitter of familiarity around the musical Cabaret to return it to the show’s original creative impulse of revealing the gathering horror of the rise of Nazism in Thirties Germany. Now they have returned to the show and dug even deeper and darker, offset by a production with newly choreographed numbers that dazzle anew.

It is partly a matter of sheer creative confidence: these artists, aided by the bleak, striking designs of Katrina Lindsay, are in total command of the material. So too are the actors who are charged with giving it flesh and blood (and there is plenty of both).

One-time Pop Idol winner Will Young marshals proceedings as the creepy Emcee, who offers a mordant, German-accented musical commentary from the centre stage of the Berlin nightclub where the show is set and where Michelle Ryan’s Sally Bowles is a wilting English rose as the featured singer, beautifully showing her as a picture of aching vulnerability disguised as confidence. The supporting performances of Sian Phillips and Linal Haft, as an elderly couple finding love but torn cruelly apart by the encroaching terrors, and Matt Rawle as the American outsider Clifford Bradshaw, lend it depth and feeling, too.

One-time Pop Idol winner Will Young marshals proceedings as the creepy Emcee, who offers a mordant, German-accented musical commentary from the centre stage of the Berlin nightclub

With its tunefully terrific score by John Kander and Fred Ebb, who also wrote Chicago, it is even more dangerous and exhilarating than that show was. Now that Chicago has finally closed, it glistens in its place as a production of thrilling, chilling power.

 

http://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/vie...-and-This-House

Edited October 14, 201212 yr by truly talented

Thanks for bringing The Times review over TT. It took me ages to type that out - got sore fingers now :lol:

 

Great reviews again :yahoo:

Edited October 14, 201212 yr by munchkin

Thanks for bringing The Times review over TT. It took me ages to type that out - got sore fingers now :lol:

 

Thanks munchkin. Was hoping someone would be able to share the review. :D another cracker. :cheer:

Thanks munchkin. Was hoping someone would be able to share the review. :D another cracker. :cheer:

Mary over on Devoted kindly scanned the review for us but it was hard to read and had to be zoomed so I sat and typed it out, as much for myself as anything. also Griff(Carole) would need a transcript to put in the locked Reviews Thread.

 

I completely missed all the papers as I didn't log on until about 4pm so it was too late by then to get the papers. But thanks to all the girls we have them. :dance:

Daily Mail

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arts/ar ... na%2BBrown

 

Monday, Oct 15 2012 12AM

Anything goes in Will Young's sexy Cabaret

 

By Georgina Brown

 

PUBLISHED: 15:34, 15 October 2012 | UPDATED: 16:15, 15 October 2012

 

Comments (0)

Share

 

CABARET Savoy Theatre, London (2hrs 30mins)

 

Rating: 3 Star Rating

 

Dirty dancing, pills, liquor and persecution: hardly the stuff of your average musical but thank goodness for that. The West End has more than enough romance and tap-dancing right now. Welcome back to decadent Thirties Berlin facing the rise of Fascism in Rufus Norris’s dark revival of Cabaret.

 

A slightly different show from the one he staged six years ago, it now stars Will Young in leather hotpants and a corset as the sinister MC presenting the scantily clad dancers of the Kit Kat Club. And excellent he is too, hitting the high notes with an effortless sweetness while something both scared and deeply scary keeps seeping through that baby face. Anything goes round here, as long as it’s sleazy.

 

In a chilling new scene, Young turns puppet-master, holding overgrown children in lederhosen at the ends of strings as they sing that deceptively innocent Aryan folk song Tomorrow Belongs To Me like automatons.

Host with the most: Will Young excels as the MC in a revival of Cabaret

 

Host with the most: Will Young excels as the MC in a revival of Cabaret

 

In the show’s final image, the nudity (and yes, you will see Young’s bottom) is shocking as the club melts away into the yard of a concentration camp where the dancers huddle beneath the snow.

 

Matt Rawle is good too as the bi-sexual would-be novelist from Pennsylvania who finds himself in this hotbed of perversion and observes its final days.

 

However, there’s little spark between him and former EastEnder Michelle Ryan’s Sally Bowles, the sexy, gin-guzzling survivor sensationally played by Liza Minnelli in the 1972 film. Ryan’s Sally is squeaky-clean, and seemingly quite unraddled by all the sordid sex and drugs. Her performance lacks the necessary sense of irony and the emotion needed for the soulful Maybe This Time and the thrusting and bitter Cabaret. She blunts the show’s edge and makes it hard to care much about anybody.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arts/ar ... z29PGqpYBY

Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

 

Thanks for posting all these outstanding reviews for Cabaret, we really couldn't have had any better ones and Will and the cast should be so proud, I am. :heart: :yahoo:

Cabaret

 

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18 Oct 2012/0 Comments /in Stage/by Little bast*rd

Cabaret ★★★★★

Dir: Rufus Norris

150 min • Savoy Theatre • From October 3, 2012

………………………………………………………………………………………….

Made famous by the 1972 Bob Fosse-directed film starring Liza Minelli, Kander and Ebbs’ dark, political musical has become best known for its title song, which has been transformed from a drug-fuelled emotional breakdown into an end-of-the pier standard, so I imagine large numbers of the audience who filled the Savoy Theatre to see Will Young and Michelle Ryan might not have been expecting sex, nudity and copious amounts of cocaine – but as a representation of the decadent 1930′s Berlin club scene, it’s spot on. Loosely based on Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye To Berlin, the show centres around a (mostly) homosexual American writer, Cliff, who travels to Berlin in search of inspiration but finds distraction in the form of Sally Bowles, an English backstreet Cabaret performer at debauched Berlin hot spot the Kit Kat Klub. Presented to us as a Cabaret of its own, our evening is presided over by the club’s Emcee.

 

This same production ran at the Lyric Theatre in 2006 before going on tour, and it’s the touring production that has been brought to the West End in 2012. Constantly evolving, the piece went through various changes the several times I saw it at the Lyric, and it had been modified for the tour, with the choreography and staging changed, the nudity and sex slightly toned down (perhaps for a touring audience). But overall the transition from West End production to travelling production has been done exquisitely. Contemporary dance maverick Javier De Frutos has created some of the most beautiful choreography I have ever seen in a musical, perfectly capturing the debauchery of the period. The stunning direction, by Award Wining Opera Director Rufus Norris, is deliciously dark, and serves the piece perfectly.

Pop star Will Young, making his West End debut as the debauched Emcee, gives a layered performance that ranges from violent caricature to stark realism. Considering where his fame stems from, it’s refreshing that his well known singing voice takes a back seat. Will’s Emcee is dark, funny, at points attractive and alluring, and at points repulsive and disgusting, which is just as he should be. At certain points, it does feel like he’s playing it for laughs slightly too much, but it feels more in the direction than an artistic choice on his part. Michelle Ryan is an engagingly decadent Sally Bowles, her almost obnoxious confidence a smokescreen for her beautifully crafted fragility. Matt Rawle, who (if I’m honest) I normally don’t like, is a well drawn and sensitive Cliff, and this is easily the best performance I have seen him give in a while. The ever-brilliant Sian Phillips is, perhaps, a little old to be playing Fräulein Scheider, but excels in the role, making her several slightly dreary numbers come alive. Harriet Thorpe reprises her role as the promiscuous Fräulein Kost, completely obliterating any memory of babies in drawers and the TV role that made her famous. The ensemble seems to have been stripped down, and whilst looking slightly thin on the ground, each section is danced flawlessly, with the perfect balance of technical ability and debauchery.

 

Yes, I won’t lie, the nudity and choreographed drug use in the first incarnation of this production excited me more than this sanitised version (there’s a surprise), but some of the changes are for the better. ‘If You Could See Her Through My Eyes’, clumsily played by James Dreyfus as the Emcee last time, is given such a reworking that the finale of it made my blood run cold, and the first act closer ‘Tomorrow Belongs To Me’ is sung not by a handsome Nazi, but by Will Young’s Emcee, in what is a terrifyingly inventive closing number. I won’t give too much away – I thought it was THAT clever – but it was so chilling it made me grin from ear to ear (I’m morbid!).

My only problem? The same one I had with it the first time round – Cabaret is never done in the way it was written. Songs are taken out (the excellent ‘Telephone Song’ is almost always omitted, despite describing the workings of the Kit Kat Klub perfectly) and this time we lose ‘Don’t Tell Mama’ in favour of ‘Mein Herr’ (incidentally, Michelle Ryan’s ‘Mein Heir’ is beyond stunning), and ‘Maybe This Time’ is once again crowbarred into the show, being one of the most famous songs from the film. This production would feel all the more visceral and relevant had it been done as written, without pandering to the masses, but that could be said for most theatre these days.

 

This is a great production, beautifully designed and excecuted, with a tremendous cast that invest completely in what they’re doing … and my one small gripe didn’t detract from that. This is one of my favourite theatrical experiences of the past few years, and this is the most perfectly cast I’ve seen it. I would rush back to see this production again, and hopefully before it closes I will, and I urge you all to do the same. Don’t go expecting a Liza Minelli style 11th hour number, though, this is totally different sort of Cabaret, and it’s all the better for it.

 

http://www.polarimagazine.com/stage-2/cabaret/

W :cheer: O :cheer: W :cheer:

 

 

PS - Thanks TT. :D

Magic fm

 

Theatre man Paul Phear gives his take on Will Young starring in new West End show Cabaret Paul says...

 

The first thing you’ll want to know about this Cabaret revival is how does Will Young fair as the Emcee? I’m very happy to report that he is terrific. Barely recognisable in his white face make up and leering out at the Savoy theatre audience it took a few seconds for most people to realise it was him. He relishes the role, with it’s outrageous costume (corsets and lederhosen!) and some sharply witty songs. Several of his scenes in the Kit Kat Kabaret looked to me like some of his elaborately staged music videos. It probably goes without saying, but I am going to say it, he sings like a dream.

 

It’s the numbers in the Kit Kat club where this show comes to life, and the sight of a grossly inflated Will Young rushing and dribbling through Money Makes the World Go Round is hard to forget. Michelle Ryan plays Sally Bowles, the headline artist of the club, who has title song and potential showstopper Maybe This Time. She seems unmoved by the sordid life that’s being played out all around her, and I found it hard to connect with her one dimensional interpretation.

 

Set in the decadent Berlin cabaret scene of the early 1930’s and based on the real characters written about by Christopher Isherwood, Cabaret records the rise of Nazism and the dangers of an entirely hedonistic lifestyle. Perhaps not everyone’s first choice for a musical theme, and you won’t leave on a high after the devastating final scene. There is plenty to enjoy along the way. A very stylish set, some daring choreography and all the supporting actors are top quality, especially Sian Phillips as landlady Fraulein Schneider.

 

But it’s Will Young’s multi layered performance you’ll remember most from this revival, catch him while you can. Booking until January 19th.

Lady Magazine

 

Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome! Anyone who has seen the fi lm version of Cabaret with Liza Minnelli will already be humming either the signature tune or 'money makes the world go round'.

 

Cabaret is surely one of the most celebrated movie-musicals of all time and made Minnelli a superstar overnight. Its adult content – dirty dancing, steamy sex, pills and liquor, abortion, persecution, horribly real life and thoroughly unhappy endings – is hardly your average West End musical fayre, but that, combined with Kander and Ebb's belting score, is doubtless part of its appeal.

 

Six years ago, the director Rufus Norris celebrated Cabaret's 40th birthday with a powerful production that accentuated the darkest and most anarchic elements to spectacular effect. His latest makeover at the Savoy is neither as murky nor as menacing, and he has toned down Javier De Frutos's fruity, exceptionally raunchy choreography, but it's much starrier, with Will Young, the winner of Pop Idol a decade ago, in the Joel Grey role as the MC of the Kit Kat Club.

 

Sporting leather hot pants and a corset, Young welcomes us to the most decadent dive in 1930s Berlin, where scantily clad dancers gender-bend and high-kick, naughty not nice. Young has real presence, his eyes bleary, his grin mirthless, he manages to look both scary and scared, if not quite as manic and sinister as Grey. In one particularly good new scene, he turns puppeteer, plucking the strings of the dancers dressed in lederhosen as they sing Tomorrow Belongs To Me, transforming them into pistol-toting Nazis who smear him with a Hitler moustache.

 

Michelle Ryan (Zoe Slater in EastEnders) has a rather bigger Liza Minnelli-shaped shadow to eclipse and, alas, doesn't manage it. Strait-laced and sweet-faced, she looks just about as raddled as a high-school hockey captain and nothing like as bruised. And while her acting doesn't find the low notes of this tough and tipsy pill-popper, her singing doesn't hit the high notes either.

 

Siân Phillips fits the bill as the lonely landlady who refuses to marry the darling greengrocer Herr Schultz, who brings her pineapples, because he's Jewish and she's afraid. With good reason. The final image, in which the dancers stand naked against the wall of a gas chamber, with Young hopelessly stretching his arms around them, is truly chilling.

Edited October 20, 201212 yr by truly talented

W :cheer: O :cheer: W :cheer:

PS - Thanks TT. :D

 

2nd encore. :lol:

They just keep coming. :yahoo:

 

Broadway com

 

Sarah Flinton

 

“There was a Cabaret, and there was a city called Berlin, in a country called Germany. It was the end of the world. And I was dancing with Sally Bowles, and we were both fast asleep.”

 

Pop Idol’s Will Young and ex-EastEnders star Michelle Ryan (or Zoe as most may know her)

take the Savoy Theatre stage alongside Sian Phillips, Matt Rawle, Linal Haft, harriet thorpe,

Nicholas Tizzard and a thorough ensemble.

 

Weimar Berlin of 1931 is turned into a dark and sexual haven of corruption. In the comforting shelter of the 'Kit-Kat Club', the morally ambiguous and unusual citizens are determined to keep up appearances of a life of parties and pleasure.

 

However, outside this musical bubble there holds a nightmarish chaos of the outbreak of Nazi Germany and war. From the creators of the ever-popular ‘Chicago’; Kander and Ebb’s ‘Cabaret’ features glittering costumes, show-stopping Fosse choreography and some of the most iconic musical theatre songs including ‘Mein Herr’ and ‘Maybe This Time’. This 2012 West End revival succeeds in continuing the show's famous style and minimalistic set; simply with frames for doors, a basic bed, block letters and ladders. A frame of yellow lights decorates the entire proscenium arch, introducing the glitziness to create an illusion of a world hiding the war. The orchestra is set upstage, creating intimacy with the characters, even with Emcee satirically conducting at the beginning of the second act.

 

Rufus Norris directed the show 6 years ago with Anna Maxwell Martin as his Sally Bowles,

Leaving the ex-Eastender lass with a lot to live up to - not only from Maxwell Martin’s

vulnerable and dejected version of the lead, but from the one and only Liza Minnelli. Minnelli,

much like her mother’s ownership of Dorothy, practically owns the part of Sally Bowles.

 

Ryan’s voice didn’t quite live up to Minnelli’s, but what she lacked in her singing she more than made up for with her dancing; singing ‘Mein Herr’ whilst upside down and in the splits at one point. Sally is the world closing their eyes on the turmoil that is surfacing in Berlin, and that will eventually affect the majority of the world. Considering this production is Michelle Ryan’s

West End debut, she came out and gave it all she had, pleasing all the audience and bringing an amazing energy to the stage that brought a smile to everyone’s face.

 

Matt Rawle, whom I most recently saw in ‘West End Men’ at G-Live in Guildford, plays

Cliffard Bradshaw, an American novelist representing the new and fairly naïve American

activist, not wanting to sit by and watch the Government walk all over certain groups in the

society. Having only seen Rawle in his own actual cabaret show with two other leading men I

was excited to see him take up a main character. Courageously entering the stage he won

me over immediately; his voice was completely heart melting and he came across as a

strong opposition to Sally.

 

The ensemble consisted of strong dancers, each holding their own, making it difficult to

pick out any individually. They were all undeniably sexy and were so together they could

have been an army regiment at times as choreographer Javier De Frutos brought a fresh

touch to the classic Fosse style.

 

Last but certainly not least, we come to Will Young as Emcee. I was anxious as to what the Pop Idol winner would be like live in the West End. But within his first line I realised how wrong I was to worry.

 

His vigour and vivacity was perfect: from the off whenever he was on stage I couldn’t watch

anyone else. He was constantly animated and drove the musical forward. His voice was

faultless, enabling him to not only play Emcee but also sing a stunning rendition of ‘I Don’t

Care Much’ that gave me goosebumps. I hope to see much more of Will Young on the West

End soon.

 

Read more: http://westend.broadwayworld.com/articl ... z29vGpb1Dl

W :cheer: O :cheer: W :cheer:

PS - Thanks TT. :D

 

 

2nd encore. :lol:

 

3rd encore. :yahoo: :lol:

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/

 

Review from LOU 27th October posted on Theatre site

 

Saw Cabaret last night. It wasn’t at all what I was expecting but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Its more of a play with music than a musical and it’s a thinking man’s show rather than happy clappy. It gets progressively darker and ultimately very sad, with some terrific performances by Sian Phillips, Linl Haft and Harriet Thorpe. I can see why people criticise Michelle Ryan, although I think the criticism is harsh. She can belt out a tune, and I liked her portrayal of Sally Bowls, although I think her lack of musical experience affected her connection to some of the songs and I think that’s what people are missing. Matt Rawle was fine as Cliff, but didn’t really connect with Michelle. The real romance was between Sian and Linl as Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz. I hadn’t seen Will Young before. Wow, what a voice! But not only that, what a musicality he has about him! He sings with honesty and purity and straight from the soul. He can also act, and the changes he portrays as the story unfolds and events take over are extraordinary. He’s the one to watch, and I expect to see more of him in the future because producers should be fighting to get him. I’m giving the show 5 stars because I think everyone should see it. It has something important to say

Wilkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome,” smirks a maniacal Will Young as he transports us to Weimar Germany in Rufus Norris’ Cabaret. The curtain is raised, the gin is poured and we find ourselves in a hedonistic Berlin on the brink of brutality. “Here, life is beautiful,” Young insists. But life here, we are reminded, is an act, old chum.

 

The show has certifiable moments of genius – mostly those orchestrated by Young’s twisted Emcee. Unfortunately, it also falls flat, particularly whenever Michelle Ryan takes to the stage. It is, I know, extremely unfair to pit Ryan against the inimitable Liza Minnelli, whose Sally Bowles ignited the streets of Berlin with equal measures of seduction and self-delusion. But the comparison is inevitable and the fact is that Ryan’s attempts to seduce the American novelist Clifford are about as rousing – and arousing – as Princess Fiona’s moves on Shrek down the road. And just as green.

 

Meanwhile, Clifford’s descent into divine decadence is swift and unimpressive – a blink-and-you’ll-miss it- experience that leaves the audience cold. He sings “Why should I wake up?” as he passes from bed-mate to bed-mate, but always looks slightly terrified as to what to actually do with them. His sexual subconscious, it seems, cares more about chorus than coitus.

 

Indeed, Berlin’s noxious mix of shagging and champagne is mostly underwhelming. Bar the full-frontal flap of a male dancer running across stage, the sexual depravity of the Kit Kat Klub flickers but never erupts. Though Young is gleeful and depraved, he lacks the latent sexual menace I know the Emcee can muster, whilst the entourage merrily gyrate around him. Indeed, the only people who really seem to get their rocks off are the elderly Fräulein Schneider and Herr Schultz. Schneider’s excitement, having been gifted a pineapple by her gentleman caller, proves it isn’t cocaine but chemistry that sparks the flames of passion. And this is something Sally and Clifford are ultimately lacking.

 

Nevertheless, the show’s decline into Nazi power is hauntingly pervasive. Norris employs Cabaret’s mise-en-abyme to convey the theatricality of fascism in abundance – something that is necessary when the true, bitter reality is far too shocking to possibly be real. By the end of the first half, the Nazis’ presence is unwavering. Young appears as a puppet master, manoeuvring the entourage that hang in front of him like lifeless marionettes. Singing “Tomorrow Belongs To Me” with unbridled brutality, he manipulates the dancers using his Swastika-shaped control bars.

 

The message Norris leaves us with is undeniably clear. Inside the Kit Kat Klub, it is the Emcee who is conducting Germany’s reckless hedonism, vaudevillian mania and grotesque depravity. But outside on the streets, the true Master of Ceremonies is swiftly gaining favour, gathering the masses and expertly pulling the strings of the German people to rise up in arms and “Heil Hitler” with a Nazi salute. “Wilkommen, Bienvenue, Welcome,” he smirks.

 

http://www.theharker.com/2012/11/07/theatre-cabaret-2/

 

 

A LETTER FROM LONDON: Much Ado in India, Cabaret and I Am a Camera, Alan Ayckbourn's Chorus of Disapproval

By Ruth Leon

03 Nov 2012

 

 

Michelle Ryan in Cabaret.

Photo by Keith Pattison

Interesting to see, in the same month, a small theatre production of John Van Druten's I Am A Camera, based on the "Berlin Stories" of Christopher Isherwood, and a major new West End production of the Kander and Ebb musical, Cabaret, from the same source material. They're both very good indeed. The play is performed in an old wine vault, musty and dark, perfect for this evocation of the decadent Berlin '30s, leading to the catastrophe that was World War Two. Splendidly acted, directed and designed, this version is well worth the trip to the Southwark Playhouse.

 

Rufus Norris' new production of Cabaret is shockingly good. I had misgivings when I heard that Will Young, the first winner of television's "Pop Idol," was to play the Master of Ceremonies in Cabaret. This is an iconic role, as specific to Joel Grey as Yul Brynner was to The King and I, and I doubted whether Young had the dramatic chops to carry it. Wrong, again. He's really creepy in a disgustingly playful way, just as he should be, and Rufus Norris' dark production pays proper attention to the seedy and sordid side of Sally Bowles' Berlin life.

 

The score soars as always, Sian Phillips and Linal Haft are affecting as the older couple in '30s Berlin who simply can't be together because he is Jewish and she isn't, and, although young Michelle Ryan in her first major role, is no Liza Minnelli, her Sally Bowles has just the right touch of louche sexiness to carry her.

 

Javier di Frutos disjointed, spasmodic choreography is a true metaphor for a fragmented decadent society fast descending into goose-stepping Nazi chaos. The underlying menace, intentioned by its authors, leads to a terrifying final scene, which I won't spoil for you, but which confirms Rufus Norris, along with Jamie Lloyd whose Cyrano has recently won plaudits on Broadway, as the best of the young British directors.

 

 

(Ruth Leon is a London and New York City arts writer and critic whose work has been seen in Playbill magazine and other publications.)

Check out Playbill.com's London listings. Seek out more of Playbill.com's international coverage, including London correspondent Mark Shenton's daily news reporting from the U.K.

http://www.playbill.com/news/article/17185...Disapproval/pg3

 

 

Cabaret returns in style to London’s Savoy Theatre

by delacybrown on November 8, 2012

 

I’ve always adored Cabaret and I really don’t understand why it has taken so long to come back onto the London stage. With its unforgettable score, including classics such as Wilkommen, Maybe This Time, and the title song Cabaret, and a vivid, contrasting, and unsettling historical setting of 1930s Berlin just before the Nazi stranglehold on the city made its sinister debut, the musical is one of the all time greats. Of course, the spectacle is engrained upon the minds of most musical-lovers in the guise of Liza Minelli’s show-stopping performance of Sally Bowles in Bob Fosse’s 1972 film spectacular, but as a theatrical showpiece, it is every bit as enjoyable. Why then isn’t Cabaret a long-running favourite like the composing team (Kander and Ebb)’s other musical great, Chicago? The mind boggles.

 

The current showing, directed by Rufus Norris, is sadly only set to run until 19 January – so when I heard that the show was making a swift return to London’s Savoy Theatre, I bought tickets as soon as I could get myself onto ticketmaster. The main attraction for many will be the 2001 Pop-Idol winner, Will Young, cast in the role of Emcee. Will Young was born to play this role. He was nothing short of superb in the overtly exaggerated, flamboyant and at times menacing role of the Cabaret’s Master of Ceremonies. Young’s voice, which shot him to fame as the winner of the first major talent contest of the current millennium, was predictably mesmerizing – he didn’t sing a note out of tune. His performance played notable homage to Joel Grey’s famous imagining of the role in the Fosse film version, but also brought the character to life with fresh and abundant energy, with greater versatility in adapting the role of cabaret host into an effective historical narrator of the social changes happening outside of the Cabaret’s doors but whose poisonous potency was leaking more and more into the lives of the Cabaret’s showmen as each day of the Nazi uprising went on.

 

Indeed, while Will Young was easily the star of the show, the other real success of Norris’ direction was his use of the pre-existing score and story line to import an altogether more menacing historical narrative into the piece. The terror which was trickling and then stampeding onto the once sexually liberal, permissive and hedonistic Berlin streets was tangible throughout the show, and this allowed the audience to partake in the very real tension which pervaded the age, climaxing in a stunningly poignant ending which, while not giving it away for those of you who may still have an opportunity to see the show, hinted at the terrorising fate which lay in store for the “alternatives” of Berlin’s Cabaret underworld once the Nazis took control. It left one both chilled, moved and surprised at the end of a show which, in previous manifestations, had maintained a fairly light-hearted atmosphere throughout. In fact in Fosse’s film, the only tangible reference to the fate of the Cabaret is the presence of a swastika armband subtly reflected in the mirror of the Kit-Kat club as the film’s credits come down. Here, the impending doom of Nazi destruction is far more prevalent. My favourite scene was probably Will Young’s performance of the Hitler Jungen marching song, Tomorrow Belongs to Me, in which Young, latterly affixed with the emblematic moustache of Hitler, controls all the surrounding dancers on huge puppet strings, the handles of his puppetry manifesting into large red swastikas which can only be viewed at the climax of the scene, when Young’s singing moves from a demure politicised aria into the increasingly erratic screams of Hitler’s rally rantings. Meanwhile the puppets’ choreography swings from sexualised movement to the regimented marching of gun-wielding soldiers – a brilliant testimony to the mass manipulation of the Nazi propaganda machine and the social changes which swept through the nation.

 

For me, the only real disappointment was Eastenders actress Michelle Ryan in the role of Sally Bowles. Minelli’s shoes are big ones to fill, and the role of Sally Bowles must be a daunting prospect for even the most adroit of singer-actresses. And yet such is the complexity of the role – a second-rate show star with an overtly familiar manner hiding a destructive, and at times desperate personality – that it would come as a challenge which most actresses would relish. But in Ryan’s interpretation, that depth and complexity of character was insufficiently prevalent. The eccentricity of the characterisation appeared a little forced and contrived, while the emotional breadth of the role was only scantly explored. Sally’s big ballad, Maybe This Time, lacked the integral desperation of the character who gives the audience this rare glimpse into the true insecurities lying beneath the bravado. Ryan’s performance seemed more concentrated on hitting the high notes – which she failed to do with any confidence. And while her singing was not at all bad, it appeared to be heavily reliant on amplification so that it could carry with anything resembling gusto. I understand that theatres want to attract audiences by casting celebrity stars, but Will Young will have been enough to pull in the crowds here. Sally Bowles is a superb opportunity for a budding actress to make it big, and I think it’s a real shame that this opportunity was not afforded to a deserving young star in the making.

 

Overall, Norris’ Cabaret is a brilliant reimagination of this piece of classic musical theatre which is given new life and a potent historical re-examination. Its success is however highly dependent on the captivating role played by Will Young, and for that reason is inherently unstable as an ongoing production, with a quickly evaporating shelf-life and a near disaster if Mr Young catches the flu. Let’s hope he keeps on pleasing audiences right through to January 19th.

 

http://daily-norm.com/2012/11/08/cabaret-r...-savoy-theatre/

Edited November 9, 201212 yr by truly talented

Just read through all of these reviews again, he really has made the role of Emcee his own this decade, :cheer: but please remember that I'm patiently

waiting for your next studio album. :music: