Much of Bertolt Brecht's material is too highbrow for most people's liking, but The Threepenny Opera manages to be both satirical and earthy.
Opening with the jaunty tune Mack the Knife, the musical - originally put on in 1928, and itself a reworking of John Gay's The Beggar's Opera of 200 years earlier - tells the tale of London's seedy underclass.
This Musicals of Oxford production, featuring dialogue by Robert David MacDonald and lyrics by Jeremy Sams, proved something of a curate's egg. It wasn't easy to reconcile the musical's Victorian-style feel with the sporadic contemporary references to mobile phones or British troops in Basra. And technically, it was occasionally shaky on Wednesday night.
But the performances were spirited, and the singing at times excellent - the highlight being, perhaps, the duet between Lucy (Laura Hanna) and Polly (Maria Trkulja). Owen Findlay was charmingly villainous as Macheath, while Matthew Jones and Delyth Jewell, as the amusing Mr and Mrs Peachum, won the loudest applause.
The Threepenny Opera is at the Playhouse until tomorrow.
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