In Weimar-era Berlin, an aspiring writer strikes up a friendship with a vivacious, penniless singer.

A dramatized semi-fictional autobiographical account of Christopher Isherwood's time in Berlin in the early 1930s is presented, that time before his fame when he was struggling financially in trying to write his first novel. He classifies that writing akin to being a camera, documenting what he sees around him solely as an observer. In present day, he remembers back to that time due to the event he is attending. Most of that remembrance centers on his platonic friendship with fellow Brit Sally Bowles, an irreverent and somewhat naive (probably on purpose) young woman who always needed to be in the center of what was happening around her. Equally poor like him, she was in Berlin to make a living as an actress, and in being unsuccessful in it in flitting from one activity to another, she always seemed to find a way to land on her feet in using people who could help her. Others in their sphere included: wealthy Natalia Landauer, a department store heiress and Chris' only English student, she who was somewhat the antithesis of Sally in being aware of what was happening around her yet traditional in her personal life; Fritz Wendel, who needed to be in love, he first setting his sights on Sally before meeting Natalia, their potential courtship hindered by a secret he was keeping from the world in that troubled geopolitical time; and independently wealthy American Clive Mortimer, whose life was all about having fun through spending money without any stated commitments.—Huggo