Londoni Pódium Cabaret

After last year's great success we are bringing the Londoni Pódium Cabaret back to the stage! An immersive tribute by the Liszt Institute London to the 1930s uniquely Budapester humour as presented in London by Hungarian Jewish émigrés a hundred years ago.

Imagine having survived a deadly plague, post-war poverty and pre-war anxiety.

Deadly tyrannical ideologies are on the rise from East to West. That is right, you are in the 1930s.* And your best bet is to just have a laugh at it.

The satiric exile community’s famous Londoni Pódium Cabaret from the 1940s comes back to the stage again as a tribute to the legendary creators: László Békeffi, George Mikes, Mátyás Seiber, Pál Ignotus, Endre Nagy and others.

The Hungarian cabaret in London – both during and after the war – unpacks crucial aspects of the emigré experience: political readjustment within a new cultural framework; definitions of ‘Self and Other’, and the tangible impact of a newly transplanted cultural community on the British art scene.

*Any resemblance with today’s happenings is entirely coincidental.

“There are no statistics about how many times the food stuck in the throats of those hundreds and hundreds who gathered by common sense, instruction, fate, intention or opportunity in wartime London when they remembered their parents, brothers and sisters who might have been massacred by the German invaders and Hungarian collaborators in that very moment; but you cannot live without eating, and everyone only does a favour to their enemy by spoiling their own appetite. The main character of the Londoni Pódium, the audience, did not do this favour to the Nazis by spoiling their own appetite for a good laugh.” (Pál Ignotus, 1945)

Experience the 1930s emigré Pódium cabaret with humorous stories and parody songs.

Cast:

• Áron Kun
• Szabolcs Sylas
• Ryan Alexander Full
• Bernadett Ostorházi
• Júlia Gyulai

Pianist: Domonkos Csabay

Special thanks to:

• Monica Bohm-Dunchan
• Mátyás Sárközi
• Julia Seiber Boyd
• Robert Waterhouse
• Ildikó Wollner

Curator:

Ferenc-János Szabó

Written by George Mikes, Pál Ignotus, Frigyes Karinthy, László Békeffi and István Örkény

Music by Mátyás Seiber

Translated by Rachel Hideg

Directed by Judit Matyóka - Liszt Institute London

Commissioned by Máté Vincze - Liszt Institute London

Photo credits: Botond Bartha