So devoid of sexuality it might have been set in Dobcross

CABARET
Palace Theatre, Manchester, by Paul Genty

THERE are some shows you expect not to like but end up loving, some that exceed expectations, and some that fail to come even close.

This, sadly, is one of the third group, more like the WI version of “Cabaret” than anything; a production so devoid of sexuality — except that tacked on in gratuitous nudity; and neglecting in any serious way to convey the politics and hedonistic life of between-the-wars Berlin, that it might as well be about Dobcross.

The story is familiar from the ultra-famous movie — the one that made Liza Minnelli’s career and won a potful of Oscars. Writer moves to Berlin to compose his great novel, meets young cabaret singer Sally Bowles, falls for her and she for him — though he is bisexual, and she a part-time whore — and they live semi-happily until the Nazis bring everything to a halt.

It’s a very tough tightrope to negotiate: cabaret songs at the low dive that is the Kit Kat Club punctuate and describe the vices and nastiness of the age, around which life whirls as only Berlin knew how.

But not in this production, which lacks the energy, moral abandon and sheer unmitigated sexiness of the story and instead gives us cold, largely black stage decor and costumes that seem pristine and fairly antiseptic — even when half worn. The hard-working chorus, when it has clothes on, is even lumbered with over-complicated dance moves from hot choreographer Javier De Frutos, an artist from the world of contemporary dance, not a cheap Thirties’ German dive.

Rufus Norris’s lumbering direction makes little distinction between the pace of the first half, when Berlin’s pleasures are laid out before our hero Clifford (Henry Luxemburg), and the second, when the Nazis bring the party to an end. There is even a closing gas chamber tableau, complete with naked flesh, that is simply crass.

The cast, too, is average. Given the toughest job is the least experienced performer, 18-year-old Samantha Barks, as Sally. A finalist in TV’s “I’d Do Anything”, she makes her professional debut and proves that while she can certainly sing, she doesn’t act well and, as yet, knows little about delivering a song in character.

At the other end of the scale, Wayne Sleep trades on his dancer-turned-singer reputation and continues to prove he can’t sing, can barely act and gets by in this role mainly on the strength of being short and unattractive.