Review - Cabaret, Festival Theatre, Malvern, until Saturday, November 14.

CABARET returned to Malvern this week - almost a year on from a sell-out run - and it breezed in just like one of your best friends.

With this show you just about know what you are going get - just like that friend!

You know how it will play with your emotions, how loud, brash and brilliant it is going to be, but you still need the main characters to stand (or should that be slump and slither?) - and deliver.

And it was delivered brilliantly.

Decadent and dark, as the sore that was Nazism seeped steadily into a way of life that marked Berlin in the 1930s, we get the delights of the bawdy Kit Kat Club and also human frailty side-by-side with the horrors that marked those years leading up to and into the Second World War.

Wayne Sleep is once again in storming form in the key role of Emcee. It could have been tailor made - as were possibly some of his more bizarre and creative outfits.

Also Siobhan Dillon (Sally Bowles) gives us some cracking renditions of this show's popular songsm, and a word of praise too for Jenny Logan - who gave a wonderful and emotional portrayal of troubled Fraulein Schneider.

A mention too for Theo Cook, the Young Nazi, for his evocative and haunting rendition of Tomorrow Belongs... while every other member of the cast and production staff can feel delighted with themselves for delivering such a polished and professional show.

Considerable praise for the team that put together the stunning sets and for director Rufus Norris too.

Like the film, the stage show is capable or providing the audience with a tear-jerking shock or two to quickly shift the mind away from the bawdiness of the lewd and loud acts at the Kit Kat.

First class entertainment!

BW