IN the summer, Cornish travelling troupe Kneehigh set up the Kneehigh Asylum in a circus tent in a field by the entrancing Lost Gardens of Heligan.

This autumn, an alternative Kneehigh asylum can be found in the Quarry Theatre at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, where the company's return has been greeted ecstatically by packed houses after Leeds so frustratingly missed out on the last tour.

The inventive, progressive Kneehigh lead where others strive to follow in their combination of storytelling, physical theatre, music-hall musical skills, fabulous costumes and mischievous, anarchic celebration of the power of theatre.

The "asylum" here is the world of corruption, exploitation, murder, bent politics and financial irregularities that first informed John Gay's 1728 musical satire, The Beggar's Opera, then took a turn for the more perverse and politically aggressive in Weill and Brecht's The Threepenny Opera 200 years later.

Now, writer Carl Groce, composer Charles Hazlewood, director Mike Shepherd and their remarkable actor-musicians transform it once more into a dark and dirty, weird and witty twisted morality tale of our times.

There is indeed a dead dog in a suitcase pretty soon after the start when contract killer/ladykiller Macheath (Dominic Marsh) bumps off Mayor Goodman (Ian Ross) and his dog (because it's a witness) after his election campaign threatens to break apart the chain of corruption involving dodgy-dealing Les Peachum (Martin Hyder) and his foul-mouthed wife (the outstanding Rina Fatania) and bent copper Colin Lockit (Giles King).

Dead Dog is one hell of a show, with trip-hop, folk, ska, grime and dubstep songs that end in a wind tunnel of dissonant, violent psychedelia; Michael Vale's busy design makes amusing use of a slide and multiple suitcases; and puppetry rears its ugly head in Punch and Judy interjections and strange-looking babies.

Performances are devastatingly stunning, not least from Angela Hardie's Polly Peachum and her rival for Macheath, Beverly Rudd's sluttish Lucy Lockit, and Jack Shalloo's scene-stealing double delight of accident-prone Filch and dimwit Terry. This is absurdly brilliant absurdist theatre from the cream of Cornwall.

Dead Dog In A Suitcase (And Other Love Songs), West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds, at 7.30pm tonight; 2pm and 7.30pm tomorrow. Box office: 0113 213 7700 or wyp.org.uk