Cast Set For CHAT NOIR! at the Lost Estate

The Lost Estate have announced the full cast of performers who will conjure the world of Montmartre in 1896 into reality, bringing the world's first cabaret club to life in the company's most ambitious project to date – ‘CHAT NOIR!'. With a calibre of performers that matches the hugely ambitious scale of the production, The Lost Estate have curated a cast, hand-selected from London's cabaret, circus and physical theatre worlds, selecting exceptional performers at the very top of their game.

Opening on 24th March 2026, CHAT NOIR! invites audiences to step through a secret door into 19th-century Paris and the birthplace of cabaret, the legendary Le Chat Noir, the original Parisian nightclub that launched a cultural revolution and gave birth to modern nightlife.

At the centre of the story stands Rodolphe Salis - the real-life proprietor of Le Chat Noir as he prepares his final and most lavish cabaret, a feverish celebration of love and madness.

Salis is brought to life by “Dandy King of Cabaret”, Joe Morose. With over a decade of experience at the centre of London's cabaret scene, Morose has been described by The Stage as “irrepressible” and by The Guardian as “impishly spiteful”. CHAT NOIR! will mark his third collaboration with The Lost Estate, having previously appeared in 58th Street and Paradise Under the Stars.

Just as Salis summoned the greatest artists of his age to create an ambitious, audacious revue, The Lost Estate's producers undertook an extensive casting process to assemble a company drawn from the very forefront of the world's cabaret performers. The team sought artists whose work embodies the spirit of Montmartre - musicians, magicians and movement artists chosen not only for technical excellence, but for their ability to become their characters and to inhabit this nocturnal world fully, where music, theatre, design, food and drink combine to make a single work of art.

Joe is joined by a cast of exceptional cabaret artists, each embodying real-life characters who once graced the famous Montmartre Cabaret stage and are now brought back to life. Scottish multi-disciplinary performer and member of The Magic Circle Neil Kelso appears as the celebrated French illusionist Buatier De Kolta. Classic burlesque artist Coco Belle, whose work channels the glamour and rebellion of bygone eras, appears as Belle Époque dancer Cléo de Mérode, often referred to as the “first real celebrity icon”. Internationally celebrated cabaret and physical theatre artist Alexander Luttley (Pi the Mime) takes to the stage as Paul LeGrand; the influential French mime who transformed the Pierrot created by Jean-Gaspard Deburau into the tearful, sentimental figure familiar to late-19th-century audiences. Completing the line-up is performer and producer Issy Wroe Wright as French cabaret singer and actress of the Belle Époque, Yvette Guilbert, alongside the wild troupe of bohemian musicians known as Les Enfants Vagabondes providing the soundtrack to the evening with new arrangements of French Late-Romantic masterpieces.

“We are absolutely thrilled to unveil this exceptional company of artists for CHAT NOIR!. Their calibre perfectly matches the huge ambition of this project. Together, we're fusing world-class cabaret, music, and theatre to create our most transportive and singular work of art to date.” - Eddy Hackett, Co-Founder and Executive Producer of The Lost Estate