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How are Rob Madge and Hannah Dodd in CABARET? | Thoughts on the new stars of the West End revival
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Mickey Jo
Vilkomen Bienvenue oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to you if you are listening on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo, I'm obsessed with all things theatre and I'm a professional theatre critic here on social media and I recently had the extraordinary privilege of getting to go to a gala night at the KitKat Club at the Playhouse Theatre here in London for the 1500th West End performance of Cabaret. The production is worth noting was also celebrating 2000 performances if you included the concurrent run at the August Wilson theatre, also the KitKat Club over on Broadway. But even the 1500 meant that this is now the longest running West End production of Cabaret ever, which is a really astonishing achievement. And you know, I often say that the West End, especially right now, is experiencing quite a commercial landscape where a show like the Olivier Award winning the Curious Case of Benjamin Button has done well to last a year, having recently announced that it will be ending its run later this year alongside things like, you know, like Mrs. Doubtfire and pretty Woman and Back to the Future and Moulin Rouge that are always going to do considerably better. That being said, Mean girls only around a year at the Savoy. I'm getting away from my point here, which was with all of these commercial parallels, you have to really celebrate the fact that a thoughtful and considered and deep production of a musical like Cabaret, one of the top 10 greatest book musicals ever written, of course, with a score by John Kander and Fred Ebb and a book by Joe Masteroff, is experiencing such ongoing success in the West End, and a big part of it has been the very smart way in which it has been produced. Not only are audiences offered this sort of semi secretive luxury experience with the immersive, atmospheric interior of the venue and the Prologue Company and these different refurbished bars, and enter via the stage door and passing through this underground tunnel and getting a free shot before moving up through these different decadent, sort of glitzy and sort of dark spaces, but also the casting of it all. And this has been the real achievement of Cabaret since it first launched at the venue in late 2021, starring Eddie Redmayne and Jessie Buckley, is that they have been bringing in high profile pairs of performers to play the iconic roles of the MC and Sally Bowles. Just in the West End we've had Billy Porter most recently previous also Leighton Williams and John McCrae and Mason Alexander park and Jake Shears and Callum Scott Howells and more. In the role of Sally Bowles we've had Marisha Wallace, Cara Delevingne, Amy Lou Wood. So many talented people. Rhea Norwood. Many, many brilliant, fantastic performers. Currently the roles are being played by Rob Madge and Hannah Dodd and today I'm going to be letting you know what their performances are like and I'm very excited to be having the conversation. I love talking about this production. I have now seen it 13 different times times, which is wild. Most of those were with different Sally's and MCs. It was only the first two pairs in London that I ever saw more than once. But as well as sharing all of my own thoughts, as always, I'm very excited to hear all of yours. Have you already had the opportunity to see Robin Hannah in cabaret at the KitKat Club in London? And if so, let us know what you thought in the comments section down below. Are you hoping to see them soon? Do you have tickets? Are you excited about it? Let us know that as well. And if you enjoy listening to my thoughts, you can bet that I will keep talking about this show and every other show in the West End and on Broadway. And if you want to hear what I have to say about them, make sure you're subscribed right here on YouTube or following me on podcast platforms. In the meantime, let us talk once more about Cabaret. Now, I told you I've seen this 13 times and I think around my 10th visit I was starting to wonder how much more I could really find in these performances and how much more they could find in these characters with within the confines of this production. And I was wrong to fear that because the three most recent portrayals of the MC that I have seen, Billy Porter, Rob Madge and Orville Peck, completely different to each other, completely different to all of their predecessors in the role, to Eddie Redmayne who originated the role with his Olivier Award winning performance in this production. And that's what I really love about this version of Cabaret is how malleable it is, it is. And how it contorts a little and becomes a different show with a different pair in the lead, but also how it can withstand that, how you can go in and find a really different interpretation of so many pivotal moments in the show. And they can be about community and heartbreak or aggression and who the MC is in particular. And what the MC represents can change wildly. And because this was built by and for Eddie Redmayne, the. The MC is a really central tenant of this production. And Rob is remarkable. They are absolutely fantastic in this role. There is a really evident love for and understanding of the material. As the kids would say, they get the assignment. But you can really feel that not only in the way it's all delivered, but in the way it's ad libbed around. This is something I started to notice over the past year or so. I think in the earlier days of Cabaret. They sort of stuck to the script. But now we're hearing more and more ad libbing. And Adam Lambert in particular was throwing a lot of ad lib in there. Billy Porter was throwing a lot of ad lib in there. Rob's is my favorite because every single ad libs joke lands, but it also builds towards something super interesting that happens as we head into the second act. So quintessential mc. The idea is, you know, starts off very charming and welcoming and comic and then shifts with the material into something considerably more dark and sinister and heading into the second act. And it's always very interesting to me to see how an actor portrays that shift within the mc. You have so many specific turning points and so many directions for you in the material that you just need to follow that path and it takes you to a really interesting place. Rob Madge doesn't do that. And I love it. I was fascinated by this because what Rob does, coupled with the use of these little ad libs and these little wink moments to the audience and this brilliant rapport established at the beginning with such warmth and charm and, you know, this very unthreatening Persona. Rob then carries all of that into the second act and allows it to get really bitingly sinister, but keeps joking around it. It doesn't sound like that should work. Here's why. It absolutely does, because it puts us in this beautifully fascinating, uncomfortable position where we as the audience are being challenged and Rob is still wink, wink, nudge, nudging us. But the wink now means, like, is that still funny? If I just did the song. If they could see her. And delivered this harrowing final line with an extraordinary Amount of aggression that I've never seen before in this production. Like screamed this final line, this final knife twist of a revelation at the end of this song that if you know the material you know about and then make a funny little joke afterwards, it's like turning to the audience and saying, and now are you going to laugh at that? Because I just did that. Like, how long can I keep being funny in this show? And you have to decide when you're going to stop laughing. In most versions of the show, the MC will tell you, and now I'm not funny anymore. Now you stop laughing. Rob is forcing us, I think, to make that decision for ourselves. And I don't know to what extent this is pre planned and calculated, but I love that. And I think that's exactly what this production should be about because Rebecca Frecknell's interpretation of the show and the ending of it all and then putting on these suits, kind of like the one that I'm wearing right now, has always spoken to complicit societies and, you know, the circumstances in which this political shift and this cultural shift was allowed to happen within the country. And so to be an audience member watching this in 2025, I want to be challenged to make those decisions about, like, when do you stop laughing at the mc? When does it stop being okay? When is it no longer possible to support what's happening on stage? And like the best MCs, the slide into the darker stuff is so pronounced because the beginning is so very charming. Eddie Redmayne always did this sort of the creepy sort of creature like thing. Rob feels much more human. And interestingly, this is another quality that I've been noticing in Billy and Orville. There's a moment in the second act.
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Mickey Jo
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Mickey Jo
During I don't care much when the MC aesthetically has become a lot more conservative, is wearing like a very styled blonde wig, is looking like certainly when portrayed by white performers, the Aryan ideal. Billy Porter's styling for this as a black performer was different. Leighton Williams, as the first black MC in this production, still wore a blonde wig. Billy didn't. Now, in earlier versions of this, there was the feel that the MC may have been representing the shift of the nation itself, that the MC may have even been sort of portraying the spirit of Berlin or the spirit of Germany and was changing as the country, as society was changing. And with Billy and Orville. And there has been a quality of reluctance. And I really noticed that in Rob as well. In so much of the dialogue, Rob feels pained delivering these sections more and more so as we go into the second act and there's this sense of reluctance. That moment in I don't care much that I was telling you about is when they sort of grab Sally. And with some more recent actors in the role, it's become a hug. It's become a desperate embrace between the two of them as they cling to each other, these two creatures amidst changing, dark society. Now, here's something else I feel it's important to know about Rob Madge to understand all of the tools that they are bringing in to craft this exceptional performance as the mc. They have a lot of experience working closely with audiences and building that rapport, not only in their acclaimed, award winning solo show, My Sons are queer, but what can you do? Which recently made its New York premiere and has been beloved by audiences here in the uk, but also as a returning company member of the annual pantomimes at the London Palladium. Rob so acutely understands how comic timing works and how these little interjections and asides to the audience work. And so Vilkemann is hilarious and deeply charming because Rob is peppering it with all of the right little notes and like I said, a lot of ad libs that I am genuinely laughing at and that actually elevate the material rather than just, you know, filling the gaps. But there's also something of a TR happening here because there is a building joke throughout the show because the embassy consistently begins sections of dialogue by saying, meiner Dammen unhearn, madames and messieurs, ladies and gentlemen. And Rob adds a little pause before gentlemen. And at the beginning, it's like an aside to look at a specific audience member. Be like. And gentlemen. And it's a little like light hearted comic moment. It's played a little more fully the second time. And then by the end, it's harder to say and it's pained, but it's still on. Gentlemen. And whether this is like a little nod to a non binary performer in what has very often historically been a queer coded or an overtly queer role. Kind of semi dismantling the gendered language used by the character, or whether it's more to do with the concept of gentleman and polite society and decency having crumbled by that point in the narrative. I don't know, but I think it's a really interesting through line that there there seems to always be something that happens at that point in the line and Rob just plays with it in a different way each time and I think it's going to evolve because.
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Mickey Jo
Those kind of performances where it is organic and where it's in conversation with the audience, they shift and they change. Now vocally, Rob sounds the best that I have ever heard them on stage. There is such a fullness and a classical resonance to the vocal in songs like I Don't Care Much. It sounds great. Sounds very quintessentially mc. This is just such a role that they were always born to play. It's entirely unique as a characterization while also feeling in many ways familiar of the Alan Cumming. I think the last person that I said that about was probably Mason Alexander park, and there's something about the authenticity of a openly queer performer in that role. Like I said, I like Eddie Redmayne's performance, which was very much a different thing. And you know, you have to give Eddie Redmayne credit for igniting this revival that has been able to go on to cast so many other performers, including Mason, including Rob Madge. But it's worth saying, if you were an Eddie Redmayne skeptic who always preferred your MCs cooked to a little more of the Alan Cumming kind of standard of steak, then Rob Madge may be the person for you and this may be the perfect time for you to revisit or for the first time go and see Cabaret at the Kitkat Club in the West End. And I'm quite confident I could continue talking about Rob as the MC at length. But we also have to talk about their co star Hannah Dodd as Sally Bowles. Now Hannah is in the very challenging position of making her West End deb very demanding and sought after and iconic role of Sally Bowles in Cabaret. But sometimes that can be to a Sally's advantage. Sometimes there is a quality and a rawness that comes with that, that can work very well with this character. Like the MC can be very malleable and interpreted in many different ways. We've now seen that with Sally and I think not necessarily until this production did I realize how many different ways you can twist Sally Bowles. And it can still work. I think there is perhaps a picture in many of our minds of the kind of characteristics that we anticipate from a Sally Bowles. And Hannah's is closer to the quintessential than some of the more differently characterized, like Marisha's, who has a very different attitude to her career and her identity and her position within the world and within the club and really challenged my understanding of who Sally Bowles was in very thrilling ways. In terms of other actors in this, Hannah felt quite proximal to Rhea Norwood's Sally Bowles, a little like Cara Delevingne's as well, but reading younger, reading considerably more naive. And naivety is a quality that we talk about an awful lot with Sally Bowles. A huge component of the plot is the lack of political understanding and insight that she has as everything is growing more and more tense for the people around her and as Cliff is waking to the realities of the country's political shift and kind of disengaging from the party that they've been living. Sally, meanwhile, is reluctant to leave the party, metaphorically speaking, because she doesn't see how any of that could possibly be affecting them. A young woman and a young man from Britain and the US respectively. Now Hannah is best known, I believe, for a role in Bridgerton, in a series of Bridgerton that I have not yet watched. I'm very sorry, I'm behind. I've seen Cabaret 13 times. That's why I'm behind on Bridgerton. You do the math on that. 1. But there is a sort of a haughty quality to her. Sally Bowles. She occasionally can feel like a character who comes from really impoverished roots and has always had to be a survivor and really just like crawl through the world and get what she needed to in order to survive. I think such is the naivety of Hannah's Sally and such is the characterization that she doesn't really feel like that. She feels like a wealthy spoiled girl who, after misbehaving, was kicked out by her parents, cut off by her wealthy father or something, and is then, as revenge, is traveling around Europe, but sort of knows that that's always a world that she could comfortably return to, even if. Even if she doesn't want to. But it does feel like a little teaspoon of privilege might be in the mixture of her portrayal of Sally here. And that doesn't always make her the most likable character, nor does she need to be, frankly. And I think with the conversations that Cabaret is having about political awareness, I think, you know, sometimes it's important that a Sally be frustrating with her willful ignorance of the country that she's living in and the issues affecting people very close to her. And there's a lot of interesting moments watching Hannah's very rapid and very animate delivery of much of the dialogue and trying to decide, is this performative? Is she doing this to just try and keep Cliff or whoever the other person in the scene is from talking just so she can get her way through sheer determination and willpower? Or is there a little more cluelessness happening here? Is she just, you know, enjoying the sound of her own voice and the performance that is Sally Bowles on a Day to day. Now, speaking of Sally and performance, I really enjoy her portrayal of the numbers in the KitKat club. It's interesting because she has this sort of slightly more contrived Persona where it's very like, I'm Sally Bowles, darling, you must never ask me anything about myself. And it is quite animated and, like I said, contrived. We don't get that peeling back in that layer of vulnerability until considerably later as far as the material goes. Not until she gets into the song Cabaret and portrays it at the beginning, really like she's drunk and stumbling around the stage. But musically we get it a little bit earlier in portions of maybe this Time. But then the walls go right back up quite quickly afterwards. And she feels like someone who is actually a very capable singer, but who doesn't necessarily have that polished quality to the voice, which sometimes does work better, I think, than those actresses in the role who are great singers and have to decide to what extent they're going to pretend not to be. Because while a lot of the dialogue feels perhaps deliberately contrived, that fosters a quality in the song moments that feels very honest. And likewise, I think I'm very intrigued about how her performance might go on to develop. Certainly there are so many of the qualities in there already that we associate with, like I said, the quintessential Sally Bowles. There is naivety and foolishness and selfishness and that real characteristic determination. I think there are moments of nuance and moments of a little greater depth and a little greater vulnerability and honesty for Sally that we could find along the way. She does sort of feel like a train that eventually pumps the emergency brakes. But like just about everyone I've ever seen on stage in this revival, it is a wholeheartedly committed and determined and raw and unapologetic performance. And I really enjoy that. So once more, those have been my thoughts about the MC and Sally Bowles right now in Cabaret. Like I said, if you have already had the chance to see these two on stage, let us all know in the comments section what you thought of their performances. And if you're planning to see them soon, then let me know that as well. I'm nosy. I like to know these things and I had such a great time. I can't guarantee I'm not going to try and go back again during the run. Am I ready for cabaret? Visit number 14. Listen, it could happen. In the meantime, thank you so much for listening to all of my thoughts today. I always enjoyed talking about this production and I had yet another fantastic time at the theatre. Seeing if you have not yet seen this production of Cabaret, now is a great time to go and check it out. Thank you so much for listening. I hope that you enjoyed this and I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a stagey day. For 10 more seconds, I'm Micky Jo Theatre. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching have a Stagey.
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