Radical Kneehigh revinvent The Beggar's Opera as twisted morality tale Dead Dog In A Suitcase

Written by Carl Grose, with a new score by Charles Hazelwood, and directed by joint artistic director Mike Shepherd, this co-production with the Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse will visit the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds from tomorrow until Saturday.

The Beggar’s Opera, written in 1728 by John Gay, was adapted by Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill in 1928 as The Threepenny Opera. Now, in keeping with its predecessors, Kneehigh’s weird and wonderful musical satire is a twisted morality tale that holds a mirror to contemporary society to confront big business, corrupt institutions and urban myths.

“The story of the dead dog in the suitcase is a 'genuine'' story," says Carl Grose. "Google it. It's urban myth. It's modern folklore. And that feels like what our Beggar's Opera is too. If John Gay's was highwaymen, prostitutes and street thieves, ours is about the mythic underbelly of now: corporate conspiracy, hit men, warped Robin Hood types, the end of civilisation, dead dogs in suitcases – all combined to create a portrait of a world hanging by a thread, in turns shocking, hilarious, heartfelt and absurd.”

Kneehigh's cast of actor-musicians will shoot, hoot and shimmy their way through the story of Mayor Goodman being assassinated, contract killer Macheath marrying Pretty Polly Peachum and Mr and Mrs Peachum not being happy about it, not one bit, in a musical that will plunder the sounds of our times. Trip hop will combine with folk, Renaissance polyphony with psychedelia, ska with grime and dubstep, while Sarah Wright's puppets will complement Michael Vale's designs.

Rina Fatania as Mrs Peachum. Picture: Steve Tanner

Music director Charles Hazlewood will be bringing Gay's original songs up to date. "The Beggar's Opera hit an unsuspecting world like a thunderbolt in 1728: an 'opera' about the essential injustice of the world, where rich and poor are corrupt alike, yet the poor go down for it and the rich do not. An 'opera' whose musical foundations seemed entirely borne of the fleshpots and gin palaces, specifically an opera where arias - instead of being arthouse confections - were a festering muck heap of scabrous little ditties belonging to everyone and no-one," he says.

“But down the years The Beggar's Opera has lost its teeth, not least because these once rapacious little tunes have evaporated from our collective consciousness. When the piece is revived, it is invariably as a charming museum-piece. The score entirely lacks the resonance John Gay endowed it with. The tunes have lost their context.

“I cannot make these tunes current and ubiquitous again. So my mission is to give them back their bite: by bending, bastardising them, often completely re-making them, and by dressing them in new and unfamiliar musical garb, so that the invigorating power of this piece might make a new mark on our sophisticated, and complacent ears."

Kneehigh's Dominic Marsh as Macheath. Picture: Steve Tanner

Grose agrees with Hazlewood's thoughts. "There's a piece at the end of The Beggar's Opera that's a summation of John Gay's statement of intent with his work, and when we looked at the original we loved the story and the characters, but it's a bit of a museum-piece, a bit creeky, and it seemed to be rather dated," he says. "That's why Brecht first updated it, and it's why we've taken inspiration from the closing statement, the final song.

"It says that if the rich were as culpable for their crimes as the poor, then we would all hang. That was the thing that excited me about revitalising The Beggar's Opera but also reflecting our times, just as Brecht did too.

"Macheath was written to be a satire of the Prime Minister of the time, Robert Walpole, but we didn't want a direct parallel with Cameron or Osborne; we wanted something that would be more universal because the fact is, corruption is strong as ever, everywhere."

One change implemented by Grose has been to strengthen the women's roles. "I wanted to give the women a lot more to do. Lucy Locket and Polly Peachum were created for two warring operatic divas to engage in battle by means of singing their hearts out, but there wasn't a lot of meat to the roles, so hopefully I've given them more interesting characters," he says.

"Polly Peachum is a flashing flame of innocence in all this darkness; slightly naive; protected by her mother and father; wearing white as the last innocent in town. I've given Lucy more to do and given her a proper voice as well, and certainly Mrs Peachum, in our version, is more with it and in control than Mr Peachum."

Grose was encouraged by Kneehigh to write a "really political" update of Gay's work and the commission happened to coincide with the birth of his son just before the first draft. "Seeing my little boy arrive, I wrote quite personally about what world would we be bringing this little person into," he says. "So there were lots of little things I was angry about that I could put into the show, but hopefully that's universal too."

He finds himself drawn to apocalyptic stories of "life on the edge". "That's partly because of my own twisted views, but also I like it dramatically, where things are on a knife edge, where it's dark, edgy, but also humorous," says Grose. "So there's lots of absurdity and humanity in Dead Dog, which is how I see the world."

Kneehigh present Dead Dog In A Suitcase (& Other Love Songs), Quarry Theatre, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, tomorrow until Saturday, 7.30pm; Thursday, 1.30pm; Saturday, 2pm. Box office: 0113 213 7700 or wyp.org.uk. Age recommendation: 14 plus.

Kneehigh alert: "This show contains loud bangs, smoke, strong language and dodgy delights amidst corporate conspiracy, hit men, and songs culled from the edge of existence. And yes, we will be putting a dead dog in a suitcase. Don't say we didn't warn you."