6th November 2023
Listen
Listen
So, yesterday me and Lucy after so so SO much planning, finally got the chance to go down to London and see Cabaret on the West End! And not just in any ordinary seats: Front. Fricking. Row. They were rather pricey – I will admit – but it was so worth it.
Disclaimer: This will discuss parts of Cabaret, which may potentially lead to spoilers. Read at your own discretion. Also, the topics addressed in the play are quite sensitive, addressing things such as antisemitism, gender and sexuality.
I’ve not been London in person since Year 6 in primary school, visiting the Imperial War Museum, which was rather limited and restricted to public transport for the most part and on-foot at a minimum. I have been there virtually via the games Assassin’s Creed Syndicate and Watch Dogs: Legion, which did surprisingly help when I was identifying certain districts and places. To be honest, in retrospect, it makes complete sense that we were in vehicles in Year 6. Now, I imagine you’ve heard of the City that Never Sleeps? That’s New York. Well, you ever heard of the City that Never Moves? To me, that’s London.
It frankly is a PAIN to walk around in, especially when it’s seasonal events like Christmas. However, the architecture more than makes up for the frequent pacing disrupts, which fills me with a weird sense of pride and admiration. I think this may just be cultural memory (where culture is objectified and allows us to reconstruct the past, by focusing on how communities remember and construct identity; e.g – in London, there is a monument dedicated to the Women of World War II within Westminster). I imagine this has ignited a sense of nationalism within me.
After all, I’ve spent so long up in the North West that getting the chance to expand beyond the confines of Northern England allows me to obtain a broader understanding of British culture. I felt like this when I got the chance to visit Oxford twice back in Year 12, enabling me to uncover the dominant myths which permeate throughout society. And so, when I think of London, I think about the amount of history which surrounds this place. The Black Death, Great Fire, the Plague. At least there wasn’t a Great Stink this time around, unless you count the odd flatulent smell which would creep up on you.
Additionally, when you bump into people accidentally in London, odds are you probably won’t hear an apology. I don’t think this is a fault of anyone – for the most part – but just a reflection of the high-intensity, rapid environment embedded within its culture. You have to be quick and logical, or risk being a public liability that holds back the masses. However, odds are you will still find yourself in massive crowds due to everyone having places to be.
Me and Lucy were SWARMED in Piccadilly Circus, which didn’t surprise us but did leave us worried about visiting Buckingham Palace, in fear of being delayed in our journey back to London Euston.
Disclaimer: Huge thank you to Lucy for helping me reconstruct our Tube journey, I couldn’t remember the exact details of which Line and routes we had taken.
We left at around half 8 in the morning to reach Runcorn Station, with our train scheduled for 9:02. We managed to get into the station on time and had a lovely hot chocolate with cream and marshmallows. Once boarding the train, our journey only took us 2 hours, arriving at around 11. The initial large crowds foreshadowed what was yet to come, but it was manageable.
After, we left Euston to board the Northern Line, which would take us to Embankment. We switched for the District Line to Westminster, finally arriving at the part of London I cared the most about seeing: Big bloody Ben. And he did not disappoint.
I also saw the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey, which is where Queen Elizabeth I is buried. Quite remarkable. Once we got the typical Westminster tourist photos, we made a move towards Trafalgar Square. On the way, we ran into Keir’s HQ: 10 Downing Street. I’ll be honest, a little overrated? It wasn’t as exciting as I had been led to believe in Year 6 or through news coverage. Compared to the insane design of the buildings nearby, it was just kind of eh. Still though, it manages to attract a fair few bit of people.
We traversed further on Whitehall, running into the WW2 women monument I referenced earlier in the article. Apparently, this memorial was unveiled in 2005 and “the gold lettering on it is said to mimic the font of wartime ration books”; this serves to commemorate the 7 million women who contributed to war efforts. It also reinforces cultural heritage and how we express memory through tangible (things we can physically touch) items like handicrafts (e.g – monuments).
We took a cheeky photo beside a red telephone box, with the box itself serving as what Dr Laurajane Smith would define as an Unauthorised Heritage Discourse (UHD), addressed in her 2006 book Uses of Heritage. This is essentially a challenge to dominant western beliefs which label things as heritage and contends with ideas of hegemony. For example, the way we speak and converse with one another would be classified as a UHD, since dialect and accents aren’t enforced by people in power but by the everyday person. An example of an Authorised Heritage Discourse (AHD) would be museums through their carefully constructed historical documentation.
Next, we continued walking down and finally reached Trafalgar Square, where I finally got to see Nelson in the flesh. This was a large improvement over virtually scaling him in 1868 London within Assassin’s Creed Syndicate. Once close to the column, we made our way to the markets and acquired a German Bratwurst sausage. Felt very much on point with Cabaret on the horizon, after all. I’m sure the MC would approve.
We also saw the Trafalgar Tree, which is well…a tree. Ok, I’ll be honest. When we both saw this, we burst out laughing because of how barebones it looks. But reading the plaque below it reveals far more. The spruce tree itself serves as a symbol of friendship between Norway and Britain, due to the King of Norway (Haakon VII) taking refuge in Britain once the Nazis invaded Norway in 1940.
This allowed a Norwegian government to be forged within London, with the city itself coming to “represent the spirit of freedom during those difficult war years and kept their hope of freedom alive”. Still though, it has seen better days despite being over 60 years old.
Then, we visited Leicester Square, which was alright but a little generic to be honest. It was cool learning that the Wicked premiere took place at the ODEON there but the look of the place leaves a bit to be desired. The McDonalds did look very fancy though. You have to order food to use the toilet there. Very odd but I suspect this is due to the city’s large population density. I also saw a statue of Daniel Kaluuya’s iconic fall from 2017’s Get Out. So cool.
We made our way to the Playhouse Theatre for Cabaret, walking down Charing Cross and I finally got to see a police officer on horseback. This merging of contemporary and traditional culture is what I believe is part of London’s appeal: parts of it reflect future developments whilst other elements are like a time capsule you can immerse yourself in.
Once getting closer, something caught my eye. It was…an eye. This reminded me of A Series of Unfortunate Events through the V.F.D symbol found on Count Olaf’s ankle. I’ve not watched the film or Netflix series in YEARS. Anyways.
It also reminded me of Foucault’s panopticon and the idea of Big Brother (taken from George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four), through the sense of mass surveillance and a need to self-regulate one’s behaviour. To be fair, my initial impressions from the symbolism isn’t too far off from what occurred in the play itself.
Me and Lucy waited patiently, managing to be the first ones in the queue; once we got in, the vibe felt immediately different. The immersion was at an all time high. There are 3 bars available in the Kit Kat Club: the Red Bar, then the Golden Bar and the Green Bar. We were only able to visit the Red and Golden Bar but did spot the Green Bar above us in the stalls.
Within this, me and Lucy treated ourselves to a cheeky 1929, a cocktail comprised of vodka, apple juice, lime juice, strawberry puree and caramel syrup. A very lovely concoction. One of the performers kept messing with my cocktail sticks, so to mess with her, I kept moving them back to their original position. She saw me do this and almost crashed out. This interactivity really sells that you’re in the club.
Our seats were front row, which was AA7. This is the view users jonathanr6 and kabirnaidoo had in these same seats, however the 3D render above was provided by Preevue (leading provider of laser scanning and 3D Digital Twins for the Creative Industries). It truly was a fantastic spot we had, very much able to witness the action unfold in such close proximity. We were messing around with the phone by using it in hopes of receiving a call. Eventually, we did. This is how that went:
The phone rang and a man answered with “Hey sexy”. I responded with “Hello beautiful, what are you up to?”. He replied “Not much” and then asked if I was single. To mess with him, I stated “I am a taken man, unfortunately”, which left him absolutely distraught. He said “all the good ones are” and I apologised. He then said he liked Lucy’s top and I offered the phone to her. He used the “Hey sexy” pickup line again, with Lucy replying “Hello darling!!!”.
He instructed Lucy to blow a kiss, where she stated that she couldn’t see him. He reassured her that he could see her (in any other situation, this would be DIABOLICAL) and so she blew a kiss and he gasped; he said “caught it sexy – by the way, Bobby LOVES you” and Lucy remarked “tell Bobby I love him too”. He finished saying “trust me, nobody loves you more than Bobby” and said he had to go, “bye sexy”. Actually hilarious. Also, because I’m super clingy, I was ringing Bobby nonstop during the interval and end of the play.
Now, I won’t get into too much analysis of Cabaret, as many people before me who are more qualified and specialised to talk about this have done so already. But from my perspective, I understood the story as fitting into 4 ideas: propaganda, spectacle, cycles and complicity. You truly feel like you’re an active participant and a member of the Kit Kat Club, watching and mindlessly revelling in the subtly dark drama.
But at the same time, I think you can also fall for the illusion of parasocial interaction (the concept where audience members believe they have an authentic relationship with media figures; in this case, the audience and the characters) and can be complicit within a meta sense through laughter and smiles.
Especially at the Gorilla song If You Could See Her, due to the last line evoking antisemitism. I think this story requires you to pay attention, else you will actually misunderstand and misinterpret the play’s media interpellation (where texts address and shape individuals’ beliefs and identities), perpetuating the blissful ignorance once present in interwar Berlin that continues in different forms today.
My favourite character within the play was promiscuous British star of the club Sally Bowles (played here by Eva Noblezada), who I felt was like an English Blanche DuBois from Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire. Although Sally rejects a conservative female representation (like dressing in restrictive clothing, being reserved in tone and body language), she parallels Blanche through the idealistic lens she carries of her reality. Much like Blanche’s assertion in Scene 9 to Mitch of “I don’t want realism. I want magic!”, Sally’s decision to get an abortion and remain in Germany against Cliff’s wishes highlights the women’s delusions of grandeur.
These women also both engage in cyclical, self-destructive behaviours. For Sally, she sleeps with several men, ends up getting pregnant, gets an abortion, abandons the men and finds new lovers. Rinse and repeat. For Blanche, due to the nature of her husband Allan’s death, she sleeps with several men to fill the void, restricts the presentation of the self-image to others around her (e.g – paper lanterns concealing her) to hide her age and fragility. Once the chaos erupts, she is forced to leave (first in Laurel, and then the French Quarter at the end).
Honestly, I could write an entire breakdown of how similar and interesting these 2 characters are but I think for this article, it would be far too much content. Maybe in a future article?
I also really enjoyed Mrs Schneider and Mr Schultz’s chemistry, adding a genuinely light-hearted tone to the nuanced darkness of the story beats; they both knocked it out of the park, especially Ruthie Henshall. She was incredible, particularly in What Would You Do?.
My favourite song was Cabaret, and my least favourite was Two Ladies; I understood the intentional meaning behind it but I think in live performance, the proxemics (concept of physical distance within communication and social interaction) of the song through the overabundance of sexual imagery was overshadowing the actual lyrics, feeling a bit too excessive.
After the show, we boarded the Piccadilly Line to reach Piccadilly Circus and then got to Green Park. While it did take a while to navigate through the crowds, it was very much worth it in my opinion. Green Park was dark and ominous yet strangely calming and beautiful, thanks to the antiquity of gas lamps. Seriously though, the aesthetic was cool but I kid you not, we could barely see. We arrived to see Buckingham Palace, which is genuinely such a beautiful place. I hope we didn’t disturb Charles.
We returned back to Green Park and took the Victoria Line, which managed to speed up our return to Euston dramatically. When arriving, we got some food and then some final supplies from M&S, before managing to get an early train of 19:35.
In London, they have this cool feature where they don’t reveal at certain points what the platform your train will be on until very close to arrival. I honestly don’t know why they do this because it would be a much calmer experience surely if people knew which platforms to progress towards. For us, we had to reach Platform 4 and me and Lucy SPRINTED like it was a soft reboot of Home Alone 2. The journey back was much calmer, recognising that we had a great day out but that we were going back home. I made it back home around 22:20.
So, that was mine and Lucy’s day out in London. Very fun but rather stressful at moments. At least we were able to keep our things safe and secure whilst having a great time. I will NOT be living there anytime soon though.
Any questions? Have you ever visited or lived in London? What about Cabaret, what do you think? Feel free to contact me via johnjoyce4535@gmail.com!
Check out my last piece: Jungle Silver: Discussing I’m a Celeb’s Finale
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