Michael Vale’s set for Dead Dog in a Suitcase brings to mind a chef’s batterie de cuisine. This workmanlike set, not a backwash any more than Charles Hazelwood’s vigorous and eclectic score, gives the actors the tools for this reworking of John Gay’s eighteenth-century Beggar’s Opera
The themes of moral degeneration, corruption and duplicity are part of the fabric of life, easy targets for satire perhaps, but no less worthy of constant vigilance and this production goes about the job with typical Kneehigh gusto. The scene is transposed to a kind of modern, yet timeless, Sin City, where dodgy businessman, Les Peachum, sets himself up to run for mayor with all the usual cynical tricks of the corrupt politician. The fly in the ointment for him comes about when he finds that his fixer, Macheath, has secretly married his innocent daughter, Polly. Concerned that this is just a cynical ploy to get his hands on the Peachum fortune and moreover that he has too much knowledge of the shady practices of the Peachum empire he encourages police chief Colin Lockit to arrest Macheath for the murder of former mayoral rival, Mayor Goodman – a murder he had ordered. Macheath avoids arrest due to the intervention of Lockit’s daughter, Lucy, who is expecting his child and finally gets him to engage in a bigamous marriage. Macheath avoids the gallows – twice.
Such are the bare bones of the piece, and that leaves much out. For Kneehigh however it is just the starting point for a blistering romp through the seedy, seamy and corrupt world in which ‘business ethics’ is an oxymoron. With typical relish the stage is populated with grotesques and paragons, stereotypes and individuals, puppets and musicians.
Macheath (Dominic Marsh) is played as a fifties spiv, a wide boy in frock coat and crepes, a self-serving, selfish, pleasure seeker with little in the way of redeeming features who nonetheless manages to leave a trail of broken hearts (and children) in his wake.
Les, the head of the Peachum empire (Martin Hyder) is borderline gormless and the real power is his wife (Rina Fatania) a Lady Macbeth figure played with tremendous energy – sexual and business. No less so is her moral opposite the ‘Flickering flame of innocence’, that is Polly Peachum. The first Polly became an overnight sensation and a subsequent celebrity who bagged herself a Duke. Angela Hardie impressed in the role in particular after her near death experience led to a convincing change of character showing an actress of genuine depth.
The whole cast shone, Giles King perhaps being worth a mention for his wayward policeman, Lockit, who galloped around the stage with easily bought enthusiasm. The whole production is a triumph of theatrical creativity which is firmly in the best Kneehigh tradition – a must see. ★★★★☆ Graham Wyles at Bath Theatre Royal on 5th October 2014
