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This spunky, scrappy rewrite of John Gay’s satirical 1728 classic ‘The Beggar’s Opera’ deserves full marks for chutzpah – both in terms of its exuberantly naughty humour and the sheer balls of opening in London the same month as a massive National Theatre revival of Brecht’s landmark rewrite ‘The Threepenny Opera’.
Unfortunately this sort-of-musical’s air of anarchic spontaneity doesn’t conceal a lot of substance. That’s not to say that creator Dougal Irvine hasn’t poured his heart and soul into ‘The Buskers Opera’. But what starts as a larksome romp ties itself into knots via an incoherent plot and a lack of will to offend.
George Maguire – who had his breakthrough in the original cast of ‘Sunny Afternoon’ – is splendid as incorrigible rogue Macheath, an ‘X Factor’ contestant-turned-anarchist who falls foul of The Man via his leftwing politics and the fact he’s boffing the daughters of both the mayor of London and bigshot tabloid owner Jeremiah ‘Peachy’ Peachum.
The show’s ribald rhymes, London street slang and irreverent glee – not to mention the sheer urchin energy Maguire pours in – keeps it afloat for a while. But Lotte Wakeham’s ragged production burns itself out, getting bogged down in the fiddly transposition of Gay’s story to the 2012 Olympics. It’s really very hard to see exactly why Irvine has done this. Simon Kane’s Mayor Lockett doesn’t resemble Boris in the slightest; David Burt’s Peachum doesn’t appear to be any sort of spoof on Murdoch et al; its insinuation that the 2012 Olympics were some sort of triumph of capitalism over idealism feels weakly argued given our mostly sunny memories of 2012. It feels like it pointedly distances itself from real people and events, completely blunting the satire. Meanwhile far too much of the plot simply happens because of something in Gay’s original, regardless of how much sense this makes in the 2012 context. And the energetic acoustic ditties get distinctly repetitive after a while.
It’s a nice idea and perhaps narrowly worth it for Maguire’s performance, but ultimately ‘The Buskers Opera’ hits a bum note, its cheekiness undermined by a disappointing fear of giving offence.