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

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A squirrel found trapped in a toilet roll and a deer tangled up in a football net were among the calls received by the RSPCA. Credit: RSPCA 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. The Scottish SPCA is now appealing for anyone with information about the incident to come forward to help 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.

The RSPCA receives around 91,500 calls to its cruelty line every month and investigates 5,300 reports of deliberate cruelty.Dr Leanne Calvert, a folklore expert and history lecturer at Hertfordshire University, agrees adding, “the ‘dead dog in a suitcase’ story thrives in urban areas arguably because it is a social comment on unreasonable bosses and the pressures of work and crime and distrust in cities. Would you ever take a stranger's offer to carry your bag off a train in London? That's a red flag for most people.” All of this and much more has fuelled Carl’s brilliant script. Dead Dog in a Suitcase (and other love songs) is a dark musical combined with high octane farce and a collection of songs culled from the edge of existence-some angry, some sweet. All combined to create a portrait of a world hanging by a thread. 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 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

A deer was found tangled in a football net in Berkshire, the RSPCA It was freed and returned to the wild. 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. 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. 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. Robyn Myszor added: “We are appealing for anyone who has seen someone with this particular holdall within the area around that time.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. 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

I also read Brechts’ version The Threepenny Opera and wrote one sentence from Brecht in my dayto-day notebook: “the world is poor and man’s a shit”. This resonated and prompted me to meet with long time Kneehigh performer, writer and marvellous man Carl Grose.

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Ultimately, with all urban legends of this ilk, they endure for decades because awful things happen in big cities. Everyone’s paranoid, no-one trusts strangers; someone stealing a dead dog isn’t even the most horrible story I’ve heard this year, let alone in 12 years living in London. 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! 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. Inspector for the charity, Robyn Myszor, said: “The dog was a white and tan male entire Staffordshire bull terrier cross. Read More Related Articles But in the peak of summer it can receive more than 130,000 a month, including 8,400 cruelty reports.

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.

STAGE TALK

Mrs Peachum starts the mayhem by paying Macheath to bump off her husband’s political rival Goodman. Rita Fatania is a joy to watch as she prowls around her hapless husband, trussed up in multiple kinds of leopard print. And although Angela Hardie as her daughter Polly feels like she’s parachuted in from another show entirely, she has a sweet charisma that comes into its own once her bad-boy lover Macheath proves true to form. 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 I’ve listened to The Damned, Jimi Hendrix, Kate Tempest, Purcell, John Taverner, PJ Harvey, Portishead, Tom Jones, Monteverdi and Mozart. 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. An exceptional piece of theatre not to be missed… The finale is truly explosive, whipping the audience into an immediate standing ovation.”– Canal Street