If you love drag, cabaret and burlesque, then you're bound to love Berlin Nights, a show created by the UK's only 1940s drag queen, Queera Lynn. We sat down with Queera over a cup of tea and a bourbon biscuit to find out more about the hottest ticket in town.
Berlin Nights is London's fastest growing Weimar inspired cabaret, featuring the very best in drag, burlesque, and comedy. It was launched in June this year, and has grown much faster than I could have possibly anticipated, and it’s so exciting to see the world of cabaret be fashionable and popular once again.
I’ve always been drawn to that late 1920s / 1930s world. I mean I’m Queera Lynn, so the clue is in the name. Cabaret has always been a conversation in the past tense.‘It would have been’ or ‘I wish I was there’ has often been the start of many conversations I’ve had when it comes to cabaret. I remember watching Chicago for the first time, forced to by an ex-girlfriend (yes you read that right), and instantly falling in love the moment the light hit Catherine Zeta-Jones in All that Jazz. I wondered though, Where have these nights gone? Surely if I love the world of cabaret, there must be others who want to see its rebirth too? After three years of performing on the drag scene, I finally took the leap into production and decided to start Berlin Nights. The name actually came to me whilst in the gym as Das ist Berlin by Liane and the Boheme Bar Trio snuck into my shuffle playlist.
There are at any given time, a number of cabaret shows happening in the city, but Berlin Nights is the future of the cabaret revival.
It can work at most venues and has a growing cast of the circuit's best and most promising stars to be. Most cabarets operate in a small room maybe monthly or bimonthly and it's underground and by word of mouth (which I love of course), but you could easily miss it. What Berlin Nights is on the way to becoming is the first recognisable brand of cabaret. No longer is cabaret hidden away for the eyes and ears of the invited but it should be loved and accessible to all. Rather than an attempt to mimic a different time in a ‘gimicky’ kind of way, Berlin Nights brings the true authenticity of cabaret into our modern times. It’s a production you know lives and breathes cabaret. The name alone echoes excitement that has waited almost a century to return. Berlin Nights is cabaret.
Within little over four months we’ve gone from the back room of the bar to launching our first West End show on the 19th of November at The Forge, so the sky's the limit! More in the West End, More RAZZLE DAZZLE, and maybe taking the show outside of London around the country, who knows?!
I believe in cabaret as an institution of entertainment and I know if done properly under the right guidance it will make a glorious revival. Not just in the guise of a musical or as something for a 20s themed party but reclaiming its seat at the front of entertainment. I believe Berlin Nights will make this happen.
