Stephen Jeffreys’ The Convict’s Opera reimagines the world’s first ever musical, The Beggar’s Opera, as a performance on board a creaking convict ship bound for Australia.

To pass the time on their journey to Australia, the convicts put on John Gay’s musical satire, The Beggar’s Opera, introducing us to treacherous highwayman MacHeath and sweet Polly Peachum as they juggle love and deceit in the dirty underbelly of eighteenth-century London. It’s a world the convicts have left far behind, and will probably never see again.

The Convict’s Opera was first performed by Out of Joint and Sydney Theatre Company at Sydney Theatre in 2008, followed by a UK tour in 2009

Published by Nick Hern Books

102 pages

Condition; Very good