Cabaret at a glance

Show
Cabaret
Venue
Kit Kat Club at the Playhouse Theatre, West End
Address
Northumberland Avenue, London WC2N 5DE
Nearest station
Embankment (2 min walk); Charing Cross (2 min walk)
Genre
Musical (immersive / political drama)
Running time
2 hours 45 minutes, including one interval
Age guidance
13+ (adult content; not recommended for under 13s)
Dates
Currently booking until 30 January 2027
Schedule
Tue–Sat evenings 7:30pm; matinees Wed and Sat 2pm
Price range
From £35 (typically £35–£295)
Music
John Kander
Lyrics
Fred Ebb
Book
Joe Masteroff
Director
Rebecca Frecknall
Choreography
Julia Cheng

Expert Review: Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club

4.7
★★★★★

LTH Expert Rating

Reviewed by the London Theatre Hub editorial team. Last updated: 1 May 2026.

The Verdict

Rebecca Frecknall's Cabaret is the most significant musical revival produced in London this decade. It takes Kander and Ebb's already brilliant show and strips away everything comfortable about it — the proscenium arch, the safe distance between audience and stage, the reassurance that this is something that happened long ago and somewhere else — to produce a theatrical experience that is genuinely unsettling in the way it was always meant to be. The Playhouse Theatre is unrecognisable. You arrive in the Kit Kat Club. The performers are already there. The party is already in progress. And by the time you leave, you understand, with uncomfortable clarity, how a world like 1930s Berlin could come to pass.

The production has cycled through an extraordinary roster of lead performers since opening in December 2021 — Eddie Redmayne, Jessie Buckley, Layton Williams, Billy Porter, Marisha Wallace, Reeve Carney, Eva Noblezada, Matt Willis, Katie Hall — and each has brought something different to roles that are designed to accommodate very different interpretations. From 25 May 2026, Jamie Muscato and Joy Woods take over, bringing West End and Broadway credibility respectively to the Emcee and Sally Bowles. The surrounding company — anchored by Ruthie Henshall as Fraulein Schneider and Baker Mukasa as Cliff — provides the emotional grounding that makes the show's final act land with such force.

What Makes It Special

  • A record seven Olivier Awards. This production won seven Olivier Awards at the 2022 ceremony — the most ever awarded to any single production in the Oliviers' history. Best Musical Revival, Best Director, Best Actor and Best Actress in a Musical, and three further awards. The industry verdict was unambiguous.
  • The Kit Kat Club itself. Tom Scutt's transformation of the Playhouse Theatre into an in-the-round club venue is one of the most complete and effective theatrical environments in the West End. With capacity reduced to around 550, every seat is close to the action. Arrive early — the pre-show is integral to the experience.
  • The score. Kander and Ebb's Cabaret contains some of the most indelible songs in musical theatre: Willkommen, Don't Tell Mama, Mein Herr, Maybe This Time, Money, and the devastating title number. Frecknall's production restores the darkness these songs always had and amplifies it.
  • The longest-running Cabaret in West End history. Having surpassed 1,800 performances in London, this production has now outlasted every previous West End run of the show. It opened in December 2021 and is booking into 2027.
  • Content to know about. The show contains adult content including material of a suggestive sexual nature, anti-Semitism, domestic violence, and references to abortion. There is one sudden loud noise near the beginning of Act 2. Firearms appear on stage.

You'll love Cabaret if you...

  • Want one of the most artistically ambitious productions in the West End
  • Are interested in how theatre can make history feel present and urgent
  • Enjoy immersive theatrical environments and don't mind being part of the world of the show
  • Love Kander and Ebb's iconic score performed at the highest level
  • Are looking for something that will genuinely stay with you long after leaving the theatre

It might not be for you if you...

  • Prefer traditional proscenium staging — the in-the-round setup is very different from a standard theatre
  • Are sensitive to the adult content, loud noises, or the show's darker political themes
  • Are bringing children under 13 — the content and themes are firmly adult
  • Want something lighter and more celebratory — Cabaret is an exhilarating but ultimately harrowing evening
  • Are on a tight budget — while tickets from £35 exist, the best immersive seats are at a premium

Best for

  • Musical theatre lovers
  • Immersive theatre fans
  • Date night
  • History and politics buffs
  • Experienced theatregoers
  • Groups (book a table)

Not suitable for under 13s or those who prefer traditional theatre formats and lighter subject matter.

Critical Reception

Frecknall's Cabaret opened in December 2021 to one of the most unanimously enthusiastic critical receptions of any musical revival in West End history. Critics across every major publication awarded five stars to the original production, with particular praise for the concept, the design, and the performances of Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley in the title roles. Subsequent cast changes have attracted equally strong re-reviews. Verified star ratings from major UK publications:

  • The Guardian ★★★★★
  • The Times ★★★★★
  • The Telegraph ★★★★★
  • Evening Standard ★★★★★
  • Time Out ★★★★★
  • WhatsOnStage ★★★★★
  • The Stage ★★★★★

Sources: published reviews of the West End production at the Kit Kat Club at the Playhouse Theatre, December 2021. Ratings based on the original opening cast. The production's concept and design are unchanged.

Everything You Need to Know

What happens in Cabaret?

Berlin, 1930. American writer Cliff Bradshaw arrives in the city looking for inspiration and takes a room in a boarding house run by Fraulein Schneider. On his first night out, he wanders into the Kit Kat Club and meets Sally Bowles — an English cabaret singer of real talent and studied recklessness who lives as though tomorrow will never arrive. They begin a relationship.

The club and the city

The Kit Kat Club, presided over by the Emcee, is a place where everyone is free — whatever they want to be, however they want to love, whoever they want to become. Outside, the political temperature is rising. Ernst Ludwig, who befriended Cliff on the train to Berlin, turns out to be a Nazi party operative. In the boarding house, Fraulein Schneider and Herr Schultz — a Jewish fruit seller who is a gentle, decent man — fall in love and begin cautiously planning a future together.

The shadow growing at the edges

Act One ends with the Kit Kat Club still a place of escape. Act Two is about what happens when escape becomes impossible. Fraulein Schneider, under pressure from her neighbours and from the political reality hardening around her, breaks off her engagement to Herr Schultz. Sally, offered a way out of Berlin and the chance of a different life, makes a choice that determines everything. The Emcee, who has been the host and the mirror throughout, steps into the light for the final time.

What it's really about

Cabaret is a show about how ordinary people accommodate themselves to extraordinary evil — through wilful distraction, through small acts of cowardice, through the very human tendency to believe that things won't get as bad as they look. The Kit Kat Club is not just a setting; it is an argument. The party that continues while the world ends is not just the party in the show. Frecknall's production makes this explicit in its final image — one of the most powerful in contemporary West End theatre.