Cabaret
24th April - 1st May 1982
Photographs by John Tustin
| Production Officials | |
|---|---|
| Director | Audrey H. McL. Raistrick |
| Musical Director | Jessie Whittaker |
| Choreographer | Wendy Duckworth |
| Cast | |
| Sally Bowles | Irene Taylor |
| Em Cee | Graham Edgington |
| Clifford Bradshaw | Mike Taylor |
| Ernst Ludwig | Martin Wadsworth |
| Herr Schultz | Harry Lee |
| Fraulein Schneider | Norma Pollitt |
| Fraulein Kost | Sue Thistlethwaite |
| Two Ladies with MC | Jennifer Edgington, Barbara Haslam |
| Two Telephone Girls | Jennifer Edgington, Diane Tustin |
| Two Boys | David Perks, Andrew Turton |
| Customs Officer | Alec Greaves |
| Max | Robin Foster |
| Quartet | Ivor Tavener, Stanley Collinson, Alec Greaves, Robin Foster |
The Kit Kat Girls |
|
| Aileen Bramwell, Glenys Collinson, Sue Daley, Dorothy Pitfield, Glenys Poole, Betty Towler, Dorothy Yardley | |
Sailors, Waiters |
|
| Andrew Turton, Ivor Tavener, Stanley Collinson, Neil McCluskey, Adrian Pollitt, David Perks, Graham Yardley | |
Customers |
|
| Barbara Martin, April Marland, Janice Warburton | |
- Bolton Evening News Review
- Manchester Evening News Review
Cabaret is a Broadway portrait of Berlin, the glamorously decadent society, about to fall into the grip of Hitler's naked power.
It's rarely performed by amateur groups but Walmsley Church AODS have tackled it with real imagination.
Red neon lights flash overhead and the customers of the Kit Kat Club sit at tables on a specially added thrust stage. The show's numerous scene changes are neatly managed so that we switch from cramped railway compartment to night club, and from fruit shop to bed sitting room, with scarcely a moment's pause.
Producer Audrey H. McL. Raistrick's main achievement is to capture the show's sense of poisonous gaiety. She's helped by a beautifully bi-sexual, hip-swinging performance by Graham Edgington as the cream-faced Master Of Ceremonies.
The Nazis' coming to power is signalled by a sweet little Landler song: Tomorrow Belongs To Me which builds up later in the show to a powerful ensemble, sung by a whole roomful of people to bring the curtain down on the first half.
It's a marvellous way to suggest how brutal politics can begin to capture the hearts and minds of perfectly ordinary, loving people.
Irene Taylor gives a nicely extraverted account of Sally Bowles, an affectionate young flapper desperately learning to fly. Mike Taylor gives a real "good guy" portrait as the young novelist who can't even complete chapter one, and Norma Pollitt gets to the heart of the warm, good natured Frau Schneider.
The show has a rewarding musical score put over to good effect under musical director Jessie Whittaker.
Ron Lawson
It's rarely performed by amateur groups but Walmsley Church AODS have tackled it with real imagination.
Red neon lights flash overhead and the customers of the Kit Kat Club sit at tables on a specially added thrust stage. The show's numerous scene changes are neatly managed so that we switch from cramped railway compartment to night club, and from fruit shop to bed sitting room, with scarcely a moment's pause.
Producer Audrey H. McL. Raistrick's main achievement is to capture the show's sense of poisonous gaiety. She's helped by a beautifully bi-sexual, hip-swinging performance by Graham Edgington as the cream-faced Master Of Ceremonies.
The Nazis' coming to power is signalled by a sweet little Landler song: Tomorrow Belongs To Me which builds up later in the show to a powerful ensemble, sung by a whole roomful of people to bring the curtain down on the first half.
It's a marvellous way to suggest how brutal politics can begin to capture the hearts and minds of perfectly ordinary, loving people.
Irene Taylor gives a nicely extraverted account of Sally Bowles, an affectionate young flapper desperately learning to fly. Mike Taylor gives a real "good guy" portrait as the young novelist who can't even complete chapter one, and Norma Pollitt gets to the heart of the warm, good natured Frau Schneider.
The show has a rewarding musical score put over to good effect under musical director Jessie Whittaker.
Ron Lawson
No point in sitting alone in your room - go and see Cabaret. The version at Walmsley Church AODS is a bouncy, breezy production by Audrey H McL Raistrick.
Aided by some slick scene changes the pace never sags as the action switches between the reality of a Nazi-threatened Berlin and the fantasy of the notorious Kit Kat Club.
Cabaret provides more acting opportunities than most musicals and Mike Taylor, as the American teacher of English, Martin Wadsworth representing the emerging new power, and Harry Lee and Norma Pollitt, as the doomed aging romantics, were totally convincing.
Irene Taylor had just the right bubbly personality to capture the engaging character of Sally Bowles whilst Sue Thistlethwaite was delightful as the "sailor's friend".
Aided by some slick scene changes the pace never sags as the action switches between the reality of a Nazi-threatened Berlin and the fantasy of the notorious Kit Kat Club.
Cabaret provides more acting opportunities than most musicals and Mike Taylor, as the American teacher of English, Martin Wadsworth representing the emerging new power, and Harry Lee and Norma Pollitt, as the doomed aging romantics, were totally convincing.
Irene Taylor had just the right bubbly personality to capture the engaging character of Sally Bowles whilst Sue Thistlethwaite was delightful as the "sailor's friend".
