The coincidence of productions of The Busker’s Opera (Park Theatre) and The Threepenny Opera (National Theatre) raises the question of what is a musical. Dougal Irvine’s revision of the story with new songs that played at the Park Theatre is definitely considered a musical, so why is the Brecht Weill version playing at the National still conceived of as a play with music? Can it be that the British theatre cognoscenti still haven’t given up an elitist preference for the literary tradition.

Perhaps the fact that songs are moved between characters and scenes in The Threepenny Opera is another clue to the difference between musical theatre and a play with songs, since in musicals songs are supposed to reveal character or move plot – and in the latest National Theatre production Jenny (Sharon Small) gets to sing the lovely ‘Surabaya Johnny’ from Act 3 of Happy End. This exchange allows directors to alter the characterisation of Jenny or Polly, or indeed Lucy, giving them more focus, more opportunity for gaining empathy and simply more stage time. The strategy therefore also alters the balance of the show.

Does such a strategy suggest that the songs are not character songs? I would suggest not. That they are interchangeable only suggests that directors want to add the quality or characteristic that is highlighted in the song to their understanding of the function of the character, offering a new reading of the relationships in the show and a new balance between characters and plot. Music in theatre is everywhere let’s celebrate the continuity between Gay, Brecht and Weill and Irvine.