After a two-year hiatus we were delighted to be able to bring live theatrical performance back to The Shed with Bertolt Brecht’s The Threepenny Opera in front of a live (albeit restricted and socially distanced) audience. Tom (Upper Sixth, Swift) was delightfully devious as the antihero ‘Mac the Knife’ Macheath, charming and threatening his way through the London underworld.
Bella (Fifth Form, Vanbrugh) and Jamie (Lower Sixth, Queen Anne) were energetic, grotesque, and terrifying in their respective roles as Mr and Mrs Peachum, running a network of thieves and beggars and violently guarding their ‘turf’. Their daughter, the lovestruck Polly, was charismatically portrayed by Poppy (Lower Sixth, Gascoigne), whose stage presence was commanding, sympathetic, and professional.
In the mix of these hoodlums shone some excellent individual performances from Dylan (Lower Sixth, Vanbrugh) as the corrupt DC Tiger Brown, Amelie (Fifth Form, Vanbrugh) as his jilted daughter Lucy; Marni (Lower Sixth, Vanbrugh) as the heartbroken and treacherous Pirate Jenny, Amy (Fifth Form, Feilden) as the charismatically tough PC Smith, and Molly (Third Form, Vanbrugh) as the creeping Filch, to name but a few amongst this highly talented cast and crew.
We were treated to a panoply of rogues, from the different gang members all dressed in signature threads, influenced by a range of eras from the 1920s right through to the 1980s. There were superbly spirited performances from the cast, with too many standout roles to mention them all individually here; but the future of Cokethorpe Drama is set to be bright with so many talented and eager performers from the younger years. Special thanks must go to the highly organised and talented backstage crew, the Music Department and to our Head of Wardrobe, Mrs Wilkinson, for their invaluable support.
