The Beggar's Opera

Synopsis

John Gay's The Beggar's Opera was originally produced on 29 January 1728 by the Theatre Manager John Rich at Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre and was the first musical show to mix dialogue with songs.

The story of The Beggar's Opera is about innocent but feisty heroine Polly Peachum, her wronged rival Lucy Lockit and Macheath, their irrepressible highwayman lover. A tangled web of lies and deceit blissfully unravels. Deep in London’s underworld, this comedy of highwaymen, hangmen and harlots is an uncompromising exposure of moral and financial corruption. 

Intended to mirror the moral degradation of society and, more particularly, to caricature the then Prime Minister Sir Robert Walpole, The Beggars Opera ran for 62 performances, the longest run then known, and the success of the production enabled John Rich to build a new theatre in Covent Garden, the forerunner of the Royal Opera House. The Beggar's Opera was first heard of Covent Garden in 1732.

At the Open Air Theatre, Regents Park, Director Lucy Bailey injects her trademark visual dynamism into John Gay’s original text, with designs by William Dudley and movement by Punchdrunk's Maxine Doyle.

The City Waites, led by Roddy Skeaping, use authentic instruments to recreate the popular ballads and folk tunes of the time.

Follow the links for The Beggar's Opera Regents Park tickets for a very memorable night out!

Our Review:

Michael Coveney - 29 June 2011

John Gay’s The Beggar's Opera is a uniquely important and remarkable piece of British theatre: the first of a new genre, the ballad opera, in 1728, that was killed off with the advent of the Lord Chamberlain just nine years later.

In the story of the sex addict and highwayman Macheath, and the corrupt judicial system that pursues him, it’s the basis for Brecht and Weill’s 1928 Threepenny Opera, and usually too mannered and stilted for its own historical reputation.

Richard Eyre’s curiously anodyne production for the National with Paul Jones as Macheath was a good example of this failure of worthiness, but John Caird’s rocked-up RSC version with David Burt in the lead was a revelation, especially in the excitement of the highwaymen’s chorus.

In Regent’s Park, the intrinsic, unadulterated merit of the piece – its filth, vigour, shocking amorality, serpentine plot, endless ...

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Latest User Review

David Baxter - 15 July 2011:

Under Timothy Sheader the Open Air Theatre has featured some amazing stage designs. Although William Dudley's set for The Beggar's Opera is relatively conventional he and director / partner Lucy Bailey have come up with a rabble rousing production that would have been ideal for the Globe, but with miked sound for better audibility. I'm not sure if the now overly familiar play within a play concept is theirs or from John Gay's original, but this rather strange piece charges along at a frantic pace like a Hogarth painting brought to life. There is a remarkably bawdy alehouse scene with one of the whores treating us to a Ruthie Henshall flash, and a startlingly realistic cat fight courtesy of Terry King. The cast attack their roles with relish, notably Jasper Britton, Beverley Rudd, Phil Daniels enjoying a spell of park life and the magnificently monickered Janet Fullerlove who sounds like a character from a Restoration comedy. Flora Spencer-Longhurst is an exquisitely beautiful Polly Peachum with a lovely light soprano, but her cockney accent suggests that won't be hearing from the casting director of EastEnders. The Beggar's Opera might be shallower than the Regent's Park lake but it is a wonderfully entertaining way to spend a summer afternoon....

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