Dead Dog in a Suitcase (and other love songs) (Oberon Modern Plays)

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Mayor Goodman has been assassinated. Contract killer Macheath has just married Pretty Polly Peachum and Mr and Mrs Peachum aren’t happy. Not one bit. Grose tinkers with the plot to reconceive Macheath as a contemporary contract killer who blithely dispatches a politician and then shoots his dog, claiming it to be a witness. It's a typical stroke of Kneehigh's attention to detail that when the canine's puppet corpse is later discovered, there are puppet flies buzzing around it. If there's a moral to be drawn from this strange tale, it’s one of skepticism. Don’t trust kind randoms on the tube, girls called Chelsey, your own friends – and definitely don’t believe everything you hear on a podcast. Second Floor and You the Living, Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, the Thief his Wife and her Lover, Breaking Bad, the Marx Brothers and Jan Švankmajer. I stumbled across a Punch and Judy show and thought that Mr Punch (the Lord of Misrule and anarchy personified) was like Macheath.

The Dead Dog in the Suitcase is an urban legend about a young woman who discovers that a golden retriever she was supposed to care for has passed away. An investigation has been launched after children found a dead dog stuffed in a suitcase in Airdrie. A deer was found tangled in a football net in Berkshire, the RSPCA It was freed and returned to the wild. The ever-inventive Kneehigh return with their blazing new show. Fasten your seat belts; it’s going to be one hell of a night!One summer, a young woman was house-sitting for a family who were away on vacation. They lived in a large downtown apartment and she was tasked with taking care of their dog, a golden retriever. Together we interrogated John Gay’s original and Bertolt Brecht’s revision: we looked for ways to strengthen what we perceived as weaknesses, we ranted about the world and what makes us furious, and realised we were fired up to make a new Beggar’s Opera for our times.

This brilliant musical satire delivers a forceful and hefty theatrical punch… One of the best ensembles I have seen for some time.”– North West End The Scottish SPCA is now appealing for anyone with information about the incident to come forward to helpI’ve listened to The Damned, Jimi Hendrix, Kate Tempest, Purcell, John Taverner, PJ Harvey, Portishead, Tom Jones, Monteverdi and Mozart. You don’t realise quite how much this play has grabbed you till the closing moments. Absolutely brilliant. Another fantastic example of the quality theatre that HOME is bringing to Manchester.”– Quiet Man Dave

As the show ends, the audience jumps to its feet en masse for an uproarious standing ovation.”– Cultural Shenanigans Mike Shepherd's production delights on many levels, but primarily succeeds because Charles Hazlewood's score provides a superior form of jukebox. Hazlewood has the ability to create through-composed sequences of genuine thematic development, but also an ear wide enough to suggest that bawdy 18th-century airs and catches share a direct bloodline with ska, grime and dubstep. Dead Dog in a Suitcase (and Other Love Songs) is, as the title suggests, a musical, and the music regularly interspersed throughout the narrative is fitting and borrows from a range of genres; the songs serve to further the narrative and add something to the audience’s understanding of the characters. The music, composed by Charles Hazlewood, is performed live on stage and creates a music concert feel to the piece and allows for a repartee between the band and the actors; indeed some of the band take on roles as part of Mac’s gang and the actors themselves all play an instrument to contribute to the soundscape. In the same spirit of immersion, the set designed by Michael Vale is a fantastic and intricate scaffolding that the actors climb up and down and repurpose to suit the needs of the scene, all done underneath an ever present noose that hangs as a warning and reminder of our characters’ inevitable fate. We are appealing for anyone who has seen someone with this particular holdall within the area around that time. Robyn Myszor added: “We are appealing for anyone who has seen someone with this particular holdall within the area around that time.Kneehigh’s version of The Beggar’s Opera is brought bang up to date and couldn’t be more enthralling… Inventive… Excellent stuff.”– Daily Post Wales Finally, director Mike Shepherd highlights a parallel between the story of our antihero Macheath and that of Mr Punch (of Punch and Judy fame) through the use of puppetry, expertly led by Sarah Wright at this performance as chief puppeteer. From Punch, to dogs and crying babies, the puppets serve to remind the audience how ridiculous and pantomimic the actions of the real world characters can seem at times, forcing us to question who the real heroes and villains are in our society. Wild and anarchic and often very funny… The cast works as a perfect ensemble. It’s all very entertaining… Very much of and for our time. ”– British Theatre Guide But in the peak of summer it can receive more than 130,000 a month, including 8,400 cruelty reports.

But then – the audience is barked "Over the top!" after the men, into a field (direction by Matthew Dunster). We pass soldiers, mired in mud, tangled in structures, calling, groaning. Against the reality of the trees, such make-believe seems tawdry. Inside the wood, red lines of light suggest tracer fire; images of soldiers are suspended between trunks, lie among the leaves and twigs. Jon Bausor's design inspires heart-strong contemplation. Instead, the actors continue the too-obvious pretence. No matter how well done, it feels like a travesty of horror. Wyn Griffith, in his tweed suit, walking through the trees and remembering, as so simply and movingly performed by Michael Elwyn, would have been enough. When Carl announced the title was to be ‘Dead Dog in a Suitcase (and other love songs)’ there were raised eyebrows and pleas for us to change it to something more “accessible” but we held out. It seemed an important statement of intent that he wasn’t simply adapting John Gay’s original but radically re-writing it. Having been fired up we now wanted to leap far away from the comfort zone. As Carl wrote at the time: “….the story of a dead dog in a suitcase is a famous urban myth (google it) It’s a modern folklore and that feels like what our Beggar’s Opera is too. If John Gay’s was highwaymen, prostitutes and street thieves then ours is about the mythic underbelly of NOW-corporate conspiracy, hit men, weirdowarped Robin Hood types, the end of civilisation, dead dogs in suitcases…I mean what the HELL is the world coming to?” As well as Carl, it’s been thrilling to work with Charles Hazlewood whose score, great skill and spirit have taken us further than we dared, and I’m indebted to the brilliance of my creative team and the pioneering spirits of Gemma Bodinetz and Deborah Aydon of the Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse for making this happen. Thank you!

If anyone has any information surrounding the circumstances, they should call the Scottish SPCA confidential animal helpline on 03000 999 999." Read More Related Articles Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse. When it was first suggested that Kneehigh might be interested in The Beggar’s Opera I wasn’t keen. The plot seemed thin; I didn’t really know who Macheath was or what he did; the women were either wives, daughters or prostitutes, the men thieves and rogues and the ending felt lame. We would always urge the public to take extra care to dispose of their rubbish responsibly so animals aren’t hurt. We’re grateful to the firefighters for their help - it’s a great example of what we can achieve together for animal welfare."