After discovering a rare Viktor Ullmann video, the Shoah Songbook concert and seeing Ute Lemper live I decided to go off and have a look for more music from Weimar, the Holocaust and resistance to Nazis; past and present.  It was an interesting haul and included a 2018 album from English cabaret singer/comedienne Melinda Hughes.

Her 2018 album Weimar and Back consists of the songs from her one woman show Margo Half Woman Half Beast about the cabaret singer Margo Lion.  It’s a mix of Weimar cabaret material by the likes of Mischa Spoliansky, Friedrich Hollaender, Kurt Weill and Werner Heymann that anyone familiar with the genre likely knows.  There’s Das lila Lied and Chuck All the Men out of the Reichstag and Youkali and  Der Mensch muss ein Heimat haben but there’s also more modern material; mostly by Hughes and collaborator Jeremy Limb.

There’s the creepy Where a Stolperstein Stands and the very contemporary and quite raunchy All the Best Men are Gay.  Please Don’t Invite Me to your Country Estate will appeal to urbanites everywhere (and manages to rhyme “duke” with “puke”).  Britannia Waives the Rules celebrates two nations separated by a common language.  If you are having trouble fitting your fanny into your knickers this is the song for you.  We’ve Been Here Before trenchantly links the 1930s to today.

All of this is stylishly sung in a rather retro style accompanied by the sort of band nightclubs had when they had bands.  It’s all rather jolly in a Sloane Rangerish sort of way.  You can also get a taste for Hughes’ cabaret singing and stand up comedy (she answers the phones at Buck House dont’ya know) on her Youtube channel.

It’s available as a physical CD, MP3 or CD quality FLAC and apparently there’s a booklet though I didn’t have access to a copy.

Catalogue information: Nimbus Records NI63676