Christopher and His Kind

Christopher and His Kind was a TV movie released by the BBC in 2011, and is the most accurate on-screen representation of Christopher Isherwood's memoirs. It differs to Cabaret (Both the film and the theatre production) and Goodbye to Berlin in many ways, but the most obvious being that Christopher (Who can be likened to Cliff or Brian) remains homosexual throughout the story, and does not become romantically involved with Jean (the inspiration behind Sally Bowles). Jean however, like Sally, is an actress who works in a cabaret bar and dabbles in prostitution. Throughout most of the film she is courting a man named Bobby who is an American business man that promises to take her to Hollywood and make her a star, before departing leaving a pregnant Jean with no more than a letter.
The Cabaret and the club don't feature heavily in this film, as it is much more focussed on Christopher's love life and his pursuits, but the politics and the changes in government and society are very similar with the Nazi party rising to power, and a betrayal to Christopher when he discovers that Caspar is a Nazi, much like in the script when Ernst is revealed as a Nazi.
I can definitely see how Sally Bowles is an extention of Jean- with the green nail polish, her open, frank way of talking and how honest she is whilst being almost in her own little showgirl world.
Quite a few of the characters from Cabaret and Goodbye to Berlin are noted in Christopher and His Kind, for example Fraulein Kost is seen on a few occasions walking a customer out and receiving payment before going back upstairs, and Fraulein Thurau is Fraulein Schneider, very much a similar character, always about and taking care of the house and herself.
I think it was interesting to watch Christopher and His Kind as it gives a totally different perspective to essentially the same story, and the differences in the way in which the characters act and are portrayed helps me to muddle things around in my head and start to think of my own perceptions of the characters a bit more.


Christopher and His Kind, 2011. [DVD] Sax, G, United Kingdom: BBC.