The Threepenny Opera (Tour – West Yorkshire Playhouse)

A new touring production of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill‘s The Threepenny Opera reaches the stage of the West Yorkshire Playhouse, having already picked up a number of rave reviews at its previous ports of call in Nottingham, Ipswich and Birmingham. However, while the show is certainly big, brash and confident, with a fully committed cast giving it their all, this updated version of the ‘beggars’ opera’ fails to fulfil its potential.

Directed by Peter Rowe (artistic director at Ipswich’s New Wolsey Theatre) and Jenny Sealey (artistic director at Graeae), this adaptation reinvents the story for the modern age, with a cast filled with beggars supposedly protesting cuts to the independent living allowance. At the centre is the character of Macheath, or Mack the Knife (Milton Lopes), the notorious criminal, who marries Polly (CiCi Howells) the daughter of JJ Peachum (Garry Robson), who runs a kind of training centre for beggars. Along the way we meet Mack’s harem of girls, his ragtag gang of ne’er-do-wells and his crooked copper mate, Tiger Brown (Will Kenning), who ensures Mack gets a free run of London.

Throughout, the tone is suitably spontaneous and ragged, with a multi-talented cast, including members of Graeae, who take on acting and musical duties, as well as a highly entertaining narrator (John Kelly). This a truly inclusive production which is signed throughout and features the dialogue and song lyrics superimposed on screens.

With its topical themes and raucous presentation, The Threepenny Opera should be a resounding success, but while all of the elements are in place, the whole thing fails to gel. It’s meant to be a satire which condemns how society/government treats the poor, but this never really feels authentic, despite some pre-show cast-audience interaction which attempts to whip us up into a revolutionary state.

For most of the show we’re following Mack’s romantic and criminal exploits, which, again, fail to really engage; even when he’s caught and threatened with the hangman’s noose. In the now-famous song which opens the show he’s billed as a vicious murderer and rapist, but here he comes across more like a bit of a cad who’s good at hoodwinking gullible women. On more than one occasion it also becomes quite confusing as to what era we’re meant to be in, which really doesn’t help. The musical numbers themselves are patchy, but mostly well-performed and certainly lively, with some bawdy lyrics, which both hit and miss the mark.

With all these loose strands in play, the whole thing ends up amounting to less than the sum of its parts, which is a real shame.

Overall, while the idea behind this update is a good one, and the cast certainly put their collective heart and soul into it, a lack of cohesion, some off-the-mark musical numbers and a failure to truly exploit the satirical opportunities on offer prevent this version of The Threepenny Opera from being added to the growing list of recent Playhouse triumphs.

However, in all fairness, it should be noted that the show was extremely well received by the Leeds’ audience, so this may very well be a case of ‘each to his own’!

The Threepenny Opera continues at the West Yorkshire Playhouse until 10 May 2014.