The Threepenny Opera music by Kurt Weill, text and lyrics by Bertolt Brecht

THE Threepenny Opera was written in 1928 as a satirical commentary on the greed of those who made fortunes out of the economic recovery that followed World War I.
Eight decades on, with the revelations about financial practices that emerged from the global financial crisis, it remains a pertinent and darkly funny musical.
The show’s “hero”, criminal gang leader Macheath, widely known as Mack the Knife, is matter of fact about his murders, burglaries and assaults, unlike the outwardly respectable businessman Mr Peachum who controls the beggars plying their trade in London.
Director Carl Caulfield reinforced the timelessness of the story by having the characters wearing garments from different eras of the past century. By the final scene, however, everyone was in contemporary garb.
Caulfield’s excellent cast, backed by Ian Cook’s chamber orchestra, blended Bertolt Brecht’s acerbic dialogue and lyrics and composer Kurt Weill’s catchy jazz, tango and ballad rhythms well.
Daniel Stoddart was a cordial Mack, notably in his reflections on wealth and poverty in Ballad of the Easy Life. Kathryn Sinclair, as Polly Peachum, his current conquest, gave Pirate Jenny, the story of an ill-treated waitress’s fantasies, a rousing adventurous strain, Sue Carson offered a persuasive analysis of men’s sexual longings in The Song of Sexual Dependency and Felicity Biggins, as a street singer, engagingly presented Mack the Knife.
The duets were especially memorable, with Stoddart and Peter Willis, as Mack’s boyhood friend and now London police chief Tiger Brown, reminiscing in the jocular but devastating Cannon Song about life in the army, Stoddart and Lisa Kinna, as prostitute Jenny, reflecting about their days together in The Tango Ballad, and Sinclair and Kim Dover, as Lucy, another of Mack’s flames, in combative mode in The Jealousy Duet.
Timothy Blundell was an unnervingly devious Mr Peachum, in contrast to Joshua Salter, Kel White, Dermod Kavanagh and Neville Taylor as Mack’s amusingly inept gang.
Ken Longworth

Image: Felicity Biggins, as the Street Singer in Newcastle Festival Opera’s The Threepenny Opera, prepares to tackle Mack the Knife