Make a day out of 'Cabaret' in London

Enjoy a perfectly marvellous day out in London with cocktails, culture, and the Kit Kat Club.

Wilkommen, bienvenue, welcome! Fremde, étranger, stranger… whether you’re a first-time visitor to London or have been several times, there’s always more to discover and perhaps this guide to activities inspired by Kander and Ebb’s musical Cabaret will introduce you to some perfectly marvellous new attractions. Maybe this time will be the best trip of all!

Nightclub singer and good-time girl Sally Bowles and aspiring writer Cliff Bradshaw are expats living in Berlin in 1929, during the final heady days of the Weimar Republic. They live in a bubble of hedonism without much care for the future, but the storm clouds become hard to ignore. The score includes “Mein Herr”, “Two Ladies”, and “Money” – the whole show is the perfect combination of escapism and stark realism.

Book Cabaret tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk.

German Gymnasium

Located in the heart of King’s Cross in a beautiful listed building, the German Gymnasium. The ground-floor Grand Café serves the heartiest German and Mittel-European cooking around. Upstairs, you can enjoy some of the esoteric aspects of German cuisine and sip cocktails in the glamorous Meister Bar – as divinely decadent as anything you’d find in 1920s Berlin.

Tuck into würste and schnitzel (with potato salad and vegetables, not with noodles) and enjoy the selection of Bavarian beers. It’s a bit more costly than the fare served at Fraulein Schneider’s boarding house, but well worth it! It’s especially lovely at Christmas, with a 20ft tree.

Address: 1 King’s Boulevard, London N1C 4BU Cost: £££

Blind Spot

All sorts of shenanigans go on in the Kit Kat Club and you’re guaranteed plenty of fun at Blind Spot, a 1920s speakeasy-style club located in the trendy St Martins Hotel behind a boutique tea counter, with a secret gold hand-shaped handle. The international menu of cocktails is inspired by Harare to Turin, Paris to Cairo, the Gold Coast to Havana. There ought to be a Berlin special.

There’s also a DJ on Fridays and Saturdays, when it’s open until 2:30am – don’t tell Mama! Tell her you’re at a tea sampling session – only a slight fib, as the cocktails are inspired by the tea trade.

Address: 45 St Martin’s Lane, London WC2N 4HX

Price: ££

Brasserie Zedel

This Piccadilly dining room designed in the Art Deco style is a real London classic, and it's located in the former Regent Palace Hotel, the site of many liaisons during the Second World War – it’s easy to imagine Sally as an habituée. There’s an excellent value three-course set menu at just under £20, or you can push the boat out with oysters and steak-frites.

There’s also a cabaret venue, known as Le Crazy Coqs. It’s a great favourite of many renowned artists, including jazz, folk and musical theatre. It's a chance to get up close and personal with some of the finest talents around in a lovely, relaxed ambiance.

Address: 20 Sherwood Street, London W1F 7ED

Price: ££-£££

Imperial War Museum

Cabaret is set during the Nazis’ rise to power, with unspeakably dire consequences for Jewish people and other minorities. The Imperial War Museum’s Second World War Galleries explore the conflict's international impact, with an emphasis on the first-hand testimonies of veterans, eyewitnesses, and survivors.

The Holocaust Galleries comprise over 2,000 photos, books, artworks, letters, and personal objects ranging from jewellery and clothing to toys and musical instruments. It is of course harrowing, but essential.

Address: Lambeth Road, London SE1 6HZ

Price: Free

The Photographers' Gallery

Christopher Isherwood’s autobiographical novel Goodbye to Berlin, the source material for Cabaret, has the following famous opening sentence: "I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking" (before Cabaret, John Van Druten turned the story into a play titled I Am a Camera). Do read the book, and also Isherwood’s later novel A Single Man – a stone-cold masterpiece.

The Photographers' Gallery, located off Oxford Circus, was founded in 1971 as the first London public gallery solely dedicated to photography. Several exhibitions run simultaneously, all covered in one ticket. Current offerings include Deborah Turbeville: Fashion Collage (Sally would like that) and Letizia Battaglia: Life, Love and Death in Sicily – very relevant themes in relation to Cabaret.

Address: 16-18 Ramillies Street, London W1F 7LW

Price: £

Moulin Rouge!

There’s another West End musical set in a nightclub – Moulin Rouge!, which immortalises the legendary French epicentre of la vie bohème, where aristocrats and showgirls mingle together. The show features a score with songs by Elton John, Elvis Presley, Dolly Parton, and more pop favourites – all in a Belle Époque setting.

Unlike Cabaret, with its world-weary cynicism and political satire, Moulin Rouge! is unashamedly romantic and melodramatic escapism. Lose yourself in the star-crossed love story of Christian and Satine and the eye-popping set and costume design. It’s a real multisensory experience.

Book Moulin Rouge! tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk

Cabaret

Meine Damen und Herren, mesdames and messieurs, ladies and gentlemen, take your seats! Rebecca Frecknall’s immersive production of Kander and Ebb's masterpiece has been playing at the Playhouse Theatre, transformed into the Kit Kat Club since 2022, picking up seven Olivier Awards. A merry-go-round of exciting star casting in the lead roles continues to keep the show fresh, showcasing all sorts of different skills.

LondonTheatre.co.uk’s reviewer loved how “the space creates an all-encompassing atmosphere” and observed the story’s uncanny resonance with today’s climate. There’s also a “lascivious pre-show smorgasbord” of entertainments. There’s time for one last party before the world goes to hell, old chums!

Book Cabaret tickets on LondonTheatre.co.uk