The Beggar's Opera - John Gay

Since having kids I have found it impossible to get to the theatre as often as I'd like, so you can expect a few more plays to start appearing here as I try to compensate.

The Beggar's Opera was huge in its Eighteenth Century heyday and it is often referred to in subsequent literature, so I am glad to have read it. Obviously the musical components don't transfer to the page, but the pace is fast, the lowlife cast of theives and whores are vividly memorable and the punchline is a corker.