Only when it was remarked that mankind had ruined the earth was an outer ring of the target hit. Brecht’s heavy-handed German ideas of American frontier colloquialism are rendered even more ludicrous by Jeremy Sams’s English translation, which adds an encrustation of banality to the peculiar original. Weill managed one hit song, ‘Moon Of Alabama’ with its quaint lyrics, so of course we have to hear it three times. Danielle de Niese as Jenny does her considerable best with it, but even she cannot rescue her other main number. Exiting from the London Coliseum, I gratefully gave a quid to a beggar just to reassert my humanity.

Source: Daily Mail February 19, 2026 08:10 UTC