Very queer things are going on at The National Theatre… Fallon Gold gets all Brechtian on our asses and checks out one of her favourite plays. 

I came to this with big expectations. As an aspiring ac-tor I studied Brecht for A level and got hooked. As an adult I discovered Kurt Weill (and Lotte Lenya) and became obsessed. The Threepenny Opera, as well as probably being the most well-known of Brecht’s plays is also, possibly, his best. The score is perfect with countless outstanding songs and a beautifully brutal orchestration including lots of brass, drums and accordion. The story is strong and forever apt and the characters are magnificently vile and scuzzy. And this is at the National. With George Ikediashi aka Le Gateau Chocolat. This stank of being a surefire winner from the get-go. And it most certainly was.

Let’s get this out of the way first, though. My only bugbears with this production were, firstly, a slightly minor one – why is Polly Peacham posh? Coming from working class-accented parents, growing up in the poverty riddled dregs of Soho, why does she speak so stage school English? It really jarred for me.

But the second issue is a doozy. Why oh why have they given the best song to a character other than who it was written for? Jenny Diver, the Grape Lane whore, is one of the greatest characters in theatre and her punch you in the face incredible number ‘Pirate Jenny’ is a stop-you-breathing flawless revenge song that makes perfect sense for her. In the National’s production Polly sings this at the beginning in response to Mackie’s lackeys being lewd towards her. Polly – although a woman in filthy Victorian England and no doubt getting her share of shit for just existing – is a rather cossetted character, being the daughter of one of the biggest crime bosses in the West End and now the wife of the most notorious criminal in those parts. So her singing it, while it is a fuck-off thrown in the faces of the goons, is nothing compared to it coming out of the mouth of an abused, drug addicted, life-long suffering sex worker. And once we meet Jenny, played by Sharon Small, the loss of hearing this outstanding actress spitting out ‘Pirate Jenny’ is all the more of a massive blow.

It reminds me of Madonna nicking ‘Another Suitcase In Another Hall’ from Andrea Corr in Evita cuz it’s obviously the best song in that score. Shame on you, National, for robbing from Small the opportunity to sing it and robbing us of the privilege of hearing her. Instead they have given Jenny a Brecht/Weil showstopper… but one that isn’t from The Threepenny Opera – ‘Surabaya Johnny’, which is from Happy End. She delivers it wonderfully.

That off my chest… Oh. My. God. The ensemble is (posh aside) faultless and compelling. Special mention to George Ikediashi who plays several characters, including getting to sing that most notorious of songs from a show, ‘Mack The Knife’. Rory Kinnear is solid. Macheath, although the main character and meaty, isn’t the most interesting by far and so for this reason is quite a challenging lead role to get right. Kinnear has a subtlety in his grandstanding performance that balances just right. But the best by far are the women. Hadyn Gwynne (most famous for Drop the Dead Donkey) is a gloriously nasty Mrs Peacham oozing around the stage in scarlet. Already mentioned but deserving of all the words is Sharon Small as Jenny, a charismatic, bitter, broken creature. Oh my god, though, Lucy Brown! Straight out of a blaxsploitation film in mini-afro, kinky boots, ruffled blouse and high-waisted hot pants Debbie Kurup plays Lucy as a kick-ass marvel who I could have watched up on that stage alone for three hourly, quite happily.

I have to also give massive propers to Nick Holder as Mr Peacham who is a slimy, horrendous, queer, monster presence, costumed so compellingly. In fact, the costume is outstanding across the board. As are the sets, pretending to be all Brechtian basic but actually massively complex and magical. Designer Vicki Mortimer is also a huge star of this production.

Mr P isn’t the only character who has been made queer in the adaptation by Simon Stephens. This is a very queer production through and through. Tiger and Mack’s brotherly, corrupt relationship is queered and we have trans sex workers, snogging monarchs and buggering bobbies all over the shop. It feels very right, as if this was Brecht’s original intention, and maybe if he’d been staging it right now, it might well have been what he’d have done with it.

The Threepenny Opera runs until 1 October at The National Theatre, London

Images by Tristram Kenton and Robert Hubert Smith