Redmayne and co-star Jessie Buckley both won 2022 Olivier Awards for their performances.

The Olivier-winning revival of Cabaret is getting a cast recording. The album will feature the Olivier-winning performances of Eddie Redmayne as The Emcee and Jessie Buckley as Sally Bowles. Redmayne’s “Willkommen” and Buckley’s “Mein Herr” will hit streaming platforms December 21, with the full release following January 20, 2023.

The Rebecca Frecknall-directed production of the Tony-winning 1966 Broadway musical, currently running at London’s Kit Kat Club (a.k.a. the renovated Playhouse Theatre), officially opened December 12, 2021. The original cast also featured Omari Douglas as Cliff Bradshaw, Liza Sadovy as Fraulein Schneider, Elliot Levey as Herr Schultz, Stewart Clarke as Ernst Ludwig, and Anna-Jane Casey as Fraulein Kost with Josh Andrews, Emily Benjamin, Sally Frith, Matthew Gent, Emma Louise Jones, Ela Lisondra, Theo Maddix, Chris O’Mara, Daniel Perry, Andre Refig, Christopher Tendai, Bethany Terry, Lillie-Pearl Wildman, and Sophie Maria Wojna.

The London production also features a new addition: a Prologue Company of nine actors, dancers, and musicians, who welcome audiences to the world of the club as they arrive at the theatre. The initial Prologue Company consisted of Gabriela Bendetti, Rachel Benson, Laura Braid, Julian Capolei, Hollie Cassar, Celine Fortenbacher-Popławska, Samantha Ho, Andrew Linnie, and Sally Swanson with an original score composed by Angus MacRae.

Since last October, the revival has been led by Callum Scott Howells and Madeline Brewer as The Emcee and Sally Bowles (respectively) with Sid Sagar as Cliff Bradshaw, Danny Mahoney as Ernst Ludwig, and Michelle Bishop as Fraulein Kost.

Take a Look Inside Rehearsal for London Cabaret Starring Eddie Redmayne

Rehearsals are underway for the upcoming London revival of Cabaret. The musical, starring Oscar, Tony, and Olivier winner Eddie Redmayne as the Emcee, is set to begin performances at London’s Kit Kat Club (the renovated Playhouse Theatre) November 15.

Based on the play by John Van Druten and stories by Christopher Isherwood, Cabaret tells the story of singer Sally Bowles, who performs at the decadent Kit Kat Klub as the Nazi Party quietly takes hold of 1930s Berlin. The show features music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and a book by Joe Masteroff.

You can go to the gallery to take a look to the photos.

A tentative smile spreads across Eddie Redmayne’s face. “Anxiety is something that drives me,” he says quietly. “It has for a long time. Ultimately, I think, you only live once. If it’s a catastrophe, I got to play a part that always felt unfinished in me. If I don’t do it, then perhaps I will just live with regret.”

We are sitting in the gilded splendor of Fischer’s, a restaurant specializing in Austrian food in the Marylebone area of London, discussing Redmayne’s bold decision to return to the stage as the charismatic and mysterious Emcee in Cabaret. (Redmayne was last seen onstage 10 years ago, as Shakespeare’s Richard II; before that he starred in Red, as the fictional assistant of Mark Rothko, winning a Tony.) He’s chosen the restaurant because he likes the area—only when we order schnitzel and cucumber salad does he realize what an appropriate setting it is to talk about Berlin in 1929.

When Cabaret opens in London in November, it will be the second time Redmayne has played this part. He first gave it a go at 19, in a student production at the Edinburgh Fringe festival just after he left Eton. It was staged in a grotty, run-down venue called Underbelly. “I didn’t really see daylight, and became quite skeletal, and I remember finding it thrilling.” Fast-forward 20 years and that excitement is still there. So is Underbelly, which, under the guidance of its founders, Ed Bartlam and Charlie Wood, has morphed into an influential producing company that hosts festivals in London and Edinburgh and has produced hit shows. It was Bartlam who approached Redmayne to play the part again; Redmayne then asked Jessie Buckley, star of Wild Rose and Judy, whether she’d like to take on Sally Bowles, the singer whose story gives Cabaret its heart. “Jessie has this extraordinary spirit and an anarchic quality,” he says.

“It was a kind of no-brainer,” explains Buckley over Zoom from Toronto, where she has been filming Sarah Polley’s Women Talking. “I feel it’s like a blank canvas, a chance to go back to the theater and fall in love, which I haven’t done since my first job”—when she was cast in Trevor Nunn’s production of Sondheim’s A Little Night Music. Playing Sally, Buckley will be able to draw on her own experience as a young singer, fresh from Kerry in Ireland, when she worked in London’s Annabel’s nightclub. “It was so far away from where I grew up,” she says, “a world of secrets.” Buckley is an enthusiast, full of energy and commitment. “For Eddie it’s a passion project, and I was delighted he thought of me,” she says, smiling broadly.

Eddie Redmayne will return to London theatre, for his first West End role in 10 years, to play the Emcee in Cabaret opposite Jessie Buckley as Sally Bowles. An intimate revival of the classic musical is set to recreate the Weimar-era Kit Kat Club for an audience capped at 550 from this November.

The show will be designed by Tom Scutt, choreographed by Julia Cheng and directed by Rebecca Frecknall, whose acclaimed Almeida production of Tennessee Williams’s Summer and Smoke transferred to the West End in 2018.

Frecknall said Cabaret had always been “dear to my heart”, and that she was in awe of her creative team, “who have come together to create a bold new production as well as a new Kit Kat Club, a bespoke home where we can truly embrace and unlock the world of Cabaret for a new audience”.

The show – which charts the friendship between Sally, an American performer at the riotous Kit Kat, and a shy Brit, Brian – is set against the rise of the Nazis in 1930s Berlin and unflinchingly depicts antisemitism and persecution. Frecknall said it was an important musical and that its revival comes “at a time when its themes and atmosphere feel so contemporary and resonant”.

With music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb and a book by Joe Masteroff, Cabaret is based on the play by John Van Druten and stories by Christopher Isherwood. It opened on Broadway in 1966 and won eight Tony awards; the 1972 film version picked up the same number of Oscars. Joel Grey played the lascivious Emcee both on stage and screen, performing in the musical numbers that interlink the drama. Grey told the Guardian last year that Cabaret took on a “heinous and terrifying subject: the Holocaust” at a time when “there were a lot of people who just wanted to forget about it. They tried to write it out of textbooks.”

Redmayne first played the Emcee 20 years ago in an Edinburgh fringe production. His last West End roles were in Red (in 2009), as the assistant of painter Mark Rothko (played by Alfred Molina), and as Shakespeare’s Richard II (in 2011), both of which were staged at the Donmar Warehouse. Buckley was recently acclaimed for her performance in a film version of Romeo and Juliet shot at the National Theatre. [Source]

The production is expected to begin performances at Playhouse Theatre in November 2021.

According to Baz Bamigboye of The Daily Mail, Kander and Ebb’s classic musical Cabaret is headed back to the West End stage in an all-new production.

According to the report, Academy Award-winning actor Eddie Redmayne and BAFTA nominee Jessie Buckley are currently in final talks to portray the Emcee and Sally Bowles, respectively.

The production is expected to begin performances at Playhouse Theatre in November 2021.

Two-time BAFTA nominee Jessie Buckley was most recently seen in the National Theatre film production of Romeo and Juliet. Buckley first rose to recognition as a finalist on the Oliver! reality competition series, I’d Do Anything. She has been seen on the West End in Stephen Sondheim’s A Little Night Music. Her notable screen credits include Chernobyl, I’m Thinking of Ending Things, and Fargo. Her film roles include Beast and Wild Rose.

On Broadway, Redmayne co-starred with Alfred Molina in the award-winning John Logan play RED for which he took home a Tony Award for Featured Actor in a Play in 2010. He originated the role at the Donmar Warehouse in London where he won the coveted Olivier Award for Best Supporting Actor. His film work includes the Les Miserables, Harry Potter spinoff Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, The Danish Girl, and The Theory of Everything, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor.

Cabaret features some of the best-known songs in musical theatre, including “Willkommen,” “Maybe This Time” and “Cabaret.”

The musical premiered on Broadway in 1966 and won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical, in addition to the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, the Outer Critics’ Circle Award, the Variety Poll of New York Critics, and London’s Evening Standard Award. [Source]