FOR Will Young, there was one big reason for taking Cabaret on tour after its successful West End run – the character of the Emcee himself.

“There are not many parts that come around like him,” he says, while the tour prepares to play Liverpool’s Empire Theatre.

“It’s a very freeing part – there are no real limitations within the character.”

It was Young who approached director Rufus Norris and producer Bill Kenwright to take the show on the road after being nominated as best actor in a musical at the 2013 Laurence Olivier Awards.

“We did a performance at the Olivier Awards and I thought, this is so much fun,” he says.

“We only did a three-week tour of it last time, so I said to them we should do a full tour.”

Roughly half the original West End cast remain for this national tour.

“There is such a good feeling in the company,” he says. “Everyone really believes in the work – coming off the Oliviers [where Cabaret was also nominated as the best musical revival] we all have a sense that this is a really great show. There is a lot of confidence and belief in the piece.”

Set in Weimar Germany, between the wars, Cabaret traces the rise of the Nazis through the prism of a Berlin nightclub, the Kit Kat Klub, and the characters who live both inside and around it.

Unlike the film – which trained much of the focus on Liza Minelli’s Sally Bowles character – the stage version takes a much wider scope.

The plot follows several threads, including a love story between narrator Cliff’s landlady Fraulein Schneider and a Jewish shopkeeper Herr Schultz, as well as Cliff’s own experiences as an outsider in an increasingly unfriendly country.

The original 1966 musical by John Kander and Fred Ebb took its inspiration from Christopher Isherwood’s classic semi-autobiographical Berlin novels, Mr Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye To Berlin.

“The Emcee is the spirit of the cabaret club,” says Young. “Cabaret was providing a social commentary on what was going on within the safe haven of entertainment and the Emcee runs the show.

“Sometimes he’s making a comment after the event, explaining it in his own weird way, other times he will portray it before it happens. It’s what is so interesting about him – there are so many dimensions within the play, he really plays with perspectives.

“You can have a scene outside the cabaret club but the Emcee can float in and float out again. He’s almost a spirit like Ariel in The Tempest.

“The audience don’t know where they stand with him – sometimes he’s friendly, charming and witty, other times he turns into this psychopathic character.”

Young believes what the musical has to say is universal – and could be applied to events happening around the world today.

“Look at Syria, look at the recession – it is still going on now,” he says. “Cabaret is art and performance being allowed to show social commentary on what is going on today.

Cabaret comedy “Little Britain is a great example of cabaret comedy. You have a woman with eight babies in a pram, in a country where we have the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Europe, or a schoolgirl who is rude to everybody, reflecting a country where the family is breaking down and society is abandoning its youth. Through comedy and lightness you can send a serious message.

“Cabaret the musical is so rich – every song is great and the story is so strong.

“Every great musical needs to have a great story – often people forget about that and concentrate on the music, which is my problem with many musicals. Every song in Cabaret is extremely valid to the story and the story is so gripping.”

When preparing for the role, he was keen not to nail the Emcee character down to a particular period in time.

“I didn’t do too much studying beyond what I knew already,” he says.

“I read the Christopher Isherwood books and the original play I Am A Camera, as well as books like [Hans Fallada’s] Alone In Berlin.

“The Emcee operates in his own world – he could come from the 16th century, he could be singing about today – certainly Money Makes The World Go Round could be about nowadays. I really concentrated on the play rather than studying the past.”

Young rose to fame after winning ITV’s 2002 Pop Idol reality talent show, topping the singles charts four times and releasing five albums – the latest of which, 2011’s Echoes, became his third number one.

He doesn’t see his musical and acting career as being mutually exclusive.

“Music is very different – it’s very fulfilling,” he says. “I’m really enjoying acting – I had a year out from music, but I’m now signed to Island Records. I’m really excited about what will come up next, I strongly believe I can do both.

“I’ve had control of my music since my second album – there’s no real point in doing something if I’m not going to believe in it. I’ve never felt a lack of control.”

He doesn’t know yet whether the experience of being on the road with Cabaret is going to influence what music comes next.

“I have no clue what the music will be like,” he says. “I try not to panic about it!”

See below for related event details