Last night Jane, Sara, Stuart and I went to see Rufus Norris's raucous, rollicking reimagining of The Threepenny Opera at the Olivier Theatre on London's glitzy South Bank.Based on Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's work this fresh adaptation by Simon Stephens is rather rude, fairly crude and deliciously lewd. We were warned at the door, "contains filthy language and immoral behaviour" and they weren't wrong!
Rory Kinnear plays Mack the Knife - maybe not quite as menacingly as he could do for my taste - as a bounder, a cad, and a pan-sexual murdering thief. You get the drift. A wrong'en.
The musical is set as London scrubs up for the coronation. The thieves are on the make, the whores on the pull, the police cutting deals to keep it all out of sight. Mr and Mrs Peachum are looking forward to a bumper day in their beggary business, but their daughter didn’t come home last night and Mack has a tale to tell.
It's a sleazy, good fun revival but lots of bawdy songs, social comment and fine performances.
My only minor carp might be that there is perhaps a little too much scenery for my taste. But it all whirled around, spun about, swung down and slotted in very nicely.
Oh and Le Gateau Chocolat is in it. And he's very good.
Recommended.
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