Live review: Ute Lemper - Rendezvous with Marlene at Barbican Hall, London, 13 December 2025

(Photo: Russ Rowland)

In 1988 Ute Lemper had a three-hour long telephone call with Hollywood legend Marlene Dietrich. It was the first and only time they spoke to each other and the call had come about because Lemper had sent a postcard to Dietrich apologising for the media attention Lemper had received comparing her to Dietrich on account of her Molière award winning performance as Sally Bowles in Cabaret in Paris (where the then 86 year old Dietrich was living).

During the call Dietrich looked back over her life of films, music and love affairs (of which there were many with both men and women) and confided in Lemper who was then at the start of her career. In 2019 Lemper first presented a show she wrote based on that phone call telling Dietrich’s story including some of the secrets revealed in that conversation and some of her songs from throughout her life.

Next year sees the 125th anniversary of Dietrich’s birth (she was born on 27 December 1901) and Lemper will be performing the show, Rendezvous with Marlene, in Europe (including Dietrich’s birthplace of Berlin) and New York. Before then there were December performances in Paris and this opener at London’s Barbican.

Lemper was somewhat under the weather with a winter cold and apologised at the start of the show for any detrimental impact on her voice. It was still a terrific performance of a powerful, funny and moving piece. Lemper tells the story of the phone call, re-enacting parts of it (playing Dietrich superbly) and sings many of the songs associated with her which are weaved deftly into the narrative. A video backdrop intermittently shows pictures and film clips as well as live shots of the on stage Lemper playing Dietrich mid-call.

Musical accompaniment was provided by Vana Gierig (piano), Cyril Garac (violin) and Romai Lecuyer (bass). This is a much slimmed down format compared to the fuller backing (including large string section) on the 2020 Rendezvous with Marlene album but it is effective and suits the intimate atmosphere of the setting. The expressiveness of the playing is not only evident during the performance of the songs. When Lemper/ Dietrich is reminiscing about Burt Bacharach, strains of What the World Needs Now Is Love can be heard from the piano.

The range of the songs covered is not only a musical feast but a terrific showcase for Lemper to demonstrate how magnificent she is with this cabaret-style repertoire. The show opens with an energetic take on Falling in Love Again (Can’t Help It) (with a When the World Was Young prelude), the song Dietrich performed in the 1930 film The Blue Angel, that went on to become something of an anthem. There’s also very enjoyable versions of One For My Baby and The Boys in the Backroom (Dietrich’s love of Moët & Chandon is referenced more than once in the show) and a moving rendition of Pete Seeger’s Where Have All the Flowers Gone. The closing batch songs in the first half includes Lili Marleen (which gets rapturous applause from a member of the audience after the first line), Ruins of Berlin, Black Market and Marie, Marie. With a stage backdrop of the ravages of the Second World War it makes for a particularly affecting end to the first section.

The second half opens with a riotous performance of Cole Porter’s The Laziest Gal in Town and closes with Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind but it is Jacques Brel’s Ne me quitte pas that is the showstopper for me. Its ‘Don’t Leave Me’/‘If You Go Away’ theme captures the heartbreak of Dietrich’s split with French actor Jean Gabin, probably her only true love. This episode in Dietrich’s life is movingly conveyed by Lemper talking as Dietrich as is much else in her story including her hatred of the Nazis, her exile to the United States and taking of American citizenship, her denunciation by Germans when she returned to give some concerts in 1960, and the difficult relationship she had with her daughter.

On a couple of occasions towards the end of the show Lemper sniffles. I’m not entirely sure it was just due to her cold but I’m pretty certain there were some emotional sniffles in the audience too.

(Photo: John Earls)