UK Theatre Network

I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking.  

Adapted from Christopher Isherwood's semi-autobiographical Berlin Stories, playwright John Van Druten's I Am A Camera focuses on the detached narrator and the hedonistic lifestyles of those around him during the collapse of the Weimar Republic. The play itself went on to inspire the musical show and film Cabaret. Cooke Productions revive this forgotten work in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the death of Christopher Isherwood.

The action takes place in the bed-sitting room of Fräulein Schneider's lodging house in 1930s Berlin. Christopher Isherwood, an aspiring writer, teaches English to make a living. His friend Fritz, a gold digger, is interested in one of his pupils – Natalia Landauer, the daughter of a Jewish department store owner. Soon the capricious night club singer Sally Bowles is moving in and together Chris and Sally struggle with poverty, drink, love and sex under the gathering clouds of Nazi Germany.

Vicky Campbell is wonderful as the volatile Sally Bowles who wears her heart on her sleeve. Her high-energy performance alone is worth the price of the ticket. Mark Jackson gives a definitely un-camp portrayal of Isherwood who was one of the best known homosexuals of the world at that time. Caroline Wildi impresses as Sally’s mother, blaming Chris for Sally’s eccentricities and determined to bring back her daughter to the Home Counties. Erika Poole is very good as Fräulein Schneider, the landlady with a heart of gold who will support her lodgers in any possible way but, representing the simple German people during that time, believes the Nazi propaganda and turns against the Jews whilst supporting Hitler on his rise to power.

Amy Yardley’s set beautifully evokes the Bohemian atmosphere of the time. 

Until 29^th May

7.30pm Tuesday - Saturday
2pm Thursday, 3pm Saturday & Sunday

Tickets: £14 / £12
All Tuesdays £10

22nd & 29th May - Special £15 tickets available which include a post-show talk on 'Isherwood and 1930's Berlin' with Dr Geoffrey Hicks from the University of East Anglia.

Box Office: 020 7704 6665

The Rosemary Branch, 2 Shepperton Road, London N1 3DT