Diva Ute Lemper returns to city

Weimar-style cabaret diva Ute Lemper returns to Edinburgh tomorrow for the first time in four years with Last Tango in Berlin, a musical journey from the backstreet German cabaret songs of Brecht and Weill, to the poetic French chansons by Brel and Piaf and on to the sultry Argentine tango nuevo of Astor Piazzolla.

Born in Munster in 1963, Lemper started performing in plays by Fassbinder and others after her graduation from the Dance Academy in Cologne and the Max Reinhardt Seminary Drama School in Vienna.

She went on to dazzle audiences in musical theatre roles - Velma Kelly in Chicago, Lola in The Blue Angel, Peter in Peter Pan, Cats and Sally Bowles in a Paris production of Cabaret.

But while her edgy repertoire has reached far beyond the country of her birth, she has found herself returning time and again to the dark world of German cabaret.

Ute Lemper, The Queen’s Hall, Clerk Street, tomorrow, 7pm, £22.50–£25, www.thequeenshall.net