The Threepenny Opera

Set in a shadowy, stylised and dreamlike Victorian London, the story of Mackie ‘The Knife’ Messer and Polly Peachum is timeless, and the combination of playwright Bertolt Brecht’s biting social satire and composer Kurt Weill’s compelling music is as fresh as ever. Brecht and Weill jointly sued Pabst’s production company for his treatment of their opera – an entertainment ‘for beggars, by beggars’ rather than a lavish and lyrical movie – but the play’s satirical bite is intact.