WILKOMMEN! Welcome to Club Trinity, the old church hall transformed all this week into the decadent KitKat Club in pre-war Berlin for Kander & Ebb's politically acerbic musical.

The black walls, revolving mirror ball and new lighting rig are permanent additions to Trinity; the bar licence is temporary, and so too the cabaret tables and chairs, scaffolding and set illustration of scantily clad dancers by Milladdio, Kate Moores and Jannah Warlow, plus examples of Expressionist German art and marching Nazis screened on the stage backdrop.

This may be a youth theatre production of a very adult play, but director John Cooper treats both cast and socio-political subject matter in the most adult manner. More than ever he stretches his cast of predominantly 15 to 17-year-olds, with younger additions, for a truly haunting Tomorrow Belongs To Me. The choreography is alluring and slinky, with its flashing fusion of fishnet and lace in the dancing, and playful prancing of KitKat Girls Laura Baggaley, Sarah Crompton, Helen Flanagan, Stacey Johnstone and Holly Pollard, and the principal performances have still more impact.

Mark Pollard's outstanding Emcee is sinister and ghostly and plays the impish yet devilish wit to the max; Felicity Skierra's nightclub star turn Sally Bowles combines powerful singing with swish dancing and a saucy demeanour, although her accent could be a little more Mayfair.

Nicholas Holbek, as American writer Clifford Bradshaw, has the precious asset of conveying internal turmoil with no excess mannerisms; by comparison, Michael Barlow, as young Nazi Ernst Ludwig, is more of a surface performer, a disturbing presence with staring eyes. Jannah Warlow, Lee Richardson and Anna Holbek all notch up good turns too.

The cast seeps away, no applause, the uncomfortable silence being the apt final comment.

Box office: 01904 674675

Updated: 12:43 Wednesday, July 09, 2003