Reviewers Choice

The Convict’s Opera is a retelling of John Gay’s eighteenth century The Beggar’s Opera, only now set on a convict ship bound for Australia, complete with cross dressing, audience participation and folk arrangements to kitsch pop classics such as Sailing and You’re So Vain.

The story of the tangled affairs of characters such as the highwayman Macheath was originally a satirical mirroring of the mores of the ruling classes and one of the first and most popular satirical operas ever. Writer Stephen Jeffrey (The Libertine) and director Max Stafford-Clark have taken the play and added a post-modern twist to it. Ship-bound convicts stage the play on their voyage into exile, break in and out of character and infuse the evening with their own stories and personalities. An extra layer is provided by the many asides to the audience and the whole thing is strung through with chamber arrangements to some lovely traditional folk and modern pop classics (including a wonderful, fiddle-strewn version of I Fought the Law).

The players lunge from one layer of reality to another as if propelled by the listing of the ship, and while there is no clear demarcation in terms of lighting or set design between the play and the play within, this blurring simply adds to the amiable lunacy of the piece.

It’s a loud, tender piece played with gusto and with some really beautiful songs. Recommended.

The Convict’s Opera has now finished its run. Check out the website for the Out of Joint theatre company for their education pack at www.outofjoint.co.uk