It’s an interesting time to stage a show like Cabaret. Beneath all the glitter, sex and celebration of queer joy, the musical — set in Thirties Berlin, and made famous by the 1972 film starring Liza Minnelli — is really a disquieting exploration of the rise of anti-Semitism in inter-war Germany.
“It does feel poignant right now,” says Rebecca Lucy Taylor, the 37-year-old pop icon better known as Self Esteem. After two years of stratospheric success in which she was nominated for the Mercury Prize, garnered five-star reviews from almost every news outlet for her album Prioritise Pleasure, played countless sold-out shows and became the actual voice of the millennial generation (more than one fan has lyrics from breakout single I Do This All The Time tattooed on them), she’s taken a pause from pop to star as Sally Bowles (the role which earned Minnelli an Oscar) alongside Jake Shears in the current West End production.
