The Threepenny Opera
Olivier Theatre
I've developed this thing about Rory Kinnear, star of the film Spectre and now Sky Atlantic's Penny Dreadful in which he plays Frankenstein's Creature. He is always among the most compelling reasons to see any play. His Hamlet was witty and his Iago a chillingly psychotic presence. But, for my money, he is at his best when playing the victim of events, not the cause of them and, as is the case here, he is too often cast against type.
In this new version of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's 1928 masterpiece, which wallows in a pleasingly profane rewrite by Simon Stephens, his killer, Macheath, has eyes as dead and dark as stagnant ponds. But as the (stone cold) heart of Rufus Norris's deliberately rough and ready production, Kinnear's charisma is not the bold and extrovert kind that this show's anti-capitalist, banker-hating mayhem needs. And why so many women throw themselves at his Macheath (and why so many men follow him) is hard to say. It can't be sex appeal, nor his charm.
No, the strongest personality in this show –- apart from Nick Holden's vampish, cross-dressing gang-master Peachum - is the production itself – a mixture of Dickensian London, Weimar Berlin (where Weill and Brecht first staged their show) and silent era flicks with keystone cops and even a version of that immortal Buster Keaton gag featuring a falling wall. But it is anti-banker anger that defines this show and, in that sense, where it falters too. It is far better at expressing it than making you feel it.