Club Kabarett, the gender-bending kabarett extravaganza led by Bernie Dieter, returns to Melbourne for a brand new season in 2026.
Bernie Dieter’s Club Kabarett is heading back to North Melbourne’s iconic Meat Market after a sell-out 2025 run, and if last year was anything to go by, this season is going to be one for the ages.
Inspired by the pre-war Weimar kabarett scene of 1920s Berlin, Club Kabarett is a wild, modern-day den of iniquity and a gender-bending space that celebrates sexual freedom and difference at a time when the world could really use it.
At the helm is Dieter herself, the undisputed queen of Weimar kabarett, a performer who has been stunning, arousing, and terrifying audiences across the globe for over a decade.
Born in Köln, Germany, Dieter grew up on her grandmother’s wild stories of life in a travelling circus in East Germany, including a daring escape west, smuggled in a caravan beneath piles of sequinned costumes.
That spirit of defiance and spectacle is baked into everything she does. She can silence a room with a haunting ballad one moment, then bring it crashing down in raucous laughter the next.
Bernie Dieter’s Club Kabarett
- Where: Meat Market, 3 Blackwood Street, North Melbourne VIC 3051
- When: 17 April – 24 May 2026, Tuesday to Sunday
- Tickets: here
Stay up to date with what’s happening in and around Melbourne here.
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Joining Dieter on stage is her live band of legendary misfits alongside a cast of world-class performers: contortionists, sword swallowers, fire breathers, international tap dancers, and incredible aerialists. It’s a full-throttle assault on the senses, set to the soundtrack of Dieter’s extraordinary vocals and her debauched, gin-soaked haus band.
More than just a night out, Club Kabarett is a triumphant revolt against the mundane, a lightning bolt of pure, life-affirming joy that welcomes people from all walks of life.
Dieter’s track record speaks for itself. Her acclaimed solo show Weimar Punk has toured internationally, with standout seasons at the Adelaide Cabaret Festival. Her notorious variety productions, Little Death Club, Berlin Underground, and the now world-famous Club Kabarett, have earned multiple awards and phenomenal critical acclaim worldwide, from London’s West End to spiegeltents across Australia, Europe, and Asia. Club Kabarett’s 2025 Meat Market season alone scored three Green Room Award nominations, including Outstanding Ensemble, Outstanding Production Design, and Outstanding Production.
This is cabaret at its most daring, most decadent, and most joyfully unhinged. Don’t sleep on it.
For more information, head here.
This article was made in partnership with Bernie Dieter.
