The Beggar’s Opera has for some reason been moved to the mid-nineteenth century by the National Theatre, although I suppose it is a period that exerts a peculiar fascination for theatrical people after the success of Nicholas Nickleby. Perhaps the wardrobe department hired the old costumes.

John Gay’s opera is in many ways a very harsh affair, and contains a thesaurus of abuse against women in particular: poor Polly Peachum was called a baggage, a jade, slut, whore and hussy in the space of five minutes. And that was just the opinion of her parents. But this combination of rough demotic and pretty songs is always a potent one: this was pantomime of the gutter, a satire filled with sentiment.

The only problem is that The Beggar’s Opera is not a very subtle work – Gay had a certain amount of trouble getting characters on and off stage, and when he is not being witty he is often banal.

The actors seemed to be enjoying themselves, though – but, then, that is what they are paid to do. Lots of cheap emotion was thrown across the stage in buckets, and even jades and whores became drenched in it. Paul Jones played Macheath: he looked convincing like a bull gone out to pasture, and his voice would have stopped a stagecoach dead in its tracks. June Watson was particularly good as Mrs Peachum.

In any case, everyone loves a good melodrama, especially when it can be vaguely associated with “literature”, and the Beggars Opera still has enough life to attract even a television audience. And who could forget the wonderful song towards the end of the play, when the melody of “Greensleeves” is matched to a sombre meditation on Tyburn Tree?