If you haven’t got your tickets yet for Shatterbox’s repeat performance of Cabaret the Musical at a CAPE transformed into the Kit Kat Club, then run, as they say, don’t walk.

In an intimate downstairs bar, the show’s 18 performers, and about as many stage hands, weave their way through a set of round cocktail tables filled with patrons. Much of the stage is given over to a 15-piece orchestra, ably conducted by Musical Director Sam Hirst, who also plays the piano.

The audience of 60 or so blends into the action, literally a part of the production.

The effect is of a song-and-dance show at an old-time nightclub. That everyone is speaking German adds delightfully to experience — until, of course, a tall man wearing a Nazi armband emerges from the shadows.

The story follows the fortunes of an idealistic American in Berlin, Clifford Bradshaw, the highlight of which is his love affair with glamorously superficial showgirl Sally Bowles.

Their courtship is set within the illuminated darkness of the Kit Kat, an enthralling place of ensemble song- and-dance pieces performed by a troupe of showgirls and boys, led here by a brilliant and courageous Master of Ceremonies, Brennan Michener, who helped Arwyn Carpenter and Hope Durham with the spectacular choreography. From the gymnastics to the tap dancing to the gorilla, the inventively arranged song and dance numbers are nothing less than thrilling.

The whole is, quite simply, sensational.

Stephanie Rose as Sally is both gorgeous and grating in equal measure — and can belt out a show tune in a way that utterly eclipses her performance as a human being. Meanwhile Peter Wood as the innocent American novelist who loves her suggests a bit of Philip Seymour Hoffman: he’s a gem the beautiful Sally is simply too blighted to be able to hold onto.

This sadly loveless story is mirrored by that of the fascists coming to run roughshod over the once joyous nightclub, which becomes a haven for the thugs — Sally among them.

A slew of supporting characters make the side stories of 1930s Berlin as engaging as the romance plot; excellent performances by Thomas Harrison as the bathrobe-loving Herr Schultz, Robin Snip as the landlady he loves, Fraulein Schneider, and Susan Del Mei as Fraulein ‘Fritzi’ Kost, threaten to steal the show. But credit for that must go to the showgirls. 

This exuberant three-hours-plus experience is transporting in every way. Once you have been, you will want to go back. Luckily, performances continue to the end of the month.