I made Polly (The Heartbreak Opera) in collaboration with Sharp Teeth Theatre between 2017 and 2020 in Berlin, London and Bristol. It is a radical, Britney and Peaches sound-tracked, drunken hen-do adaptation of an 18th Century rom-com.
"Horror amid the hilarity: Marie Hamilton and Stephanie Kempson’s musical John Gay adaptation hits all the right notes... Overwhelming fun"
Exeunt
Read reviews in full here
We took John Gay's banned sequel to The Beggar’s Opera, and smashed it to peices. Following all three of Macheath's wives as they sail the seven seas and wash up on an island to wreak their revenge. There are drag king politicians, Tarantino-esque machine gun showdowns, a pregnant murderess, and a pirate boyband called Blazin' Squid. It is a wild, joyous battlecry, and an unashamed expression of female rage, of love, loss, and revenge.
“a triumphant melding of satire, stagecraft, songs, comedy and more than a hint of the sinister… laugh-a-minute stuff of the highest order… A show that pulled off the dazzling trick of paying tribute to Gay’s original while being wholly original itself. Theatre needs ingenuity like this.”
The Greenwich Visitor
We were about to set off on tour to the Salisbury Playhouse, The Lowry, The Assembly, Edinburgh and many others over Spring and the Summer of 2020, but then Covid came and broke our hearts. However! Work continues! And we shall bring her back as soon as we are allowed.
"Gritty, in-your-face, intelligent exploration of feminism, power and control, completely bang on for political timing and satirical commentary... performances that contain an authentic vulnerability to grotesque abuse and all the nuances in between"
Weston-Super-Mum
“Terrific… Fierce and utterly irreverent.”
Ali Robertson, Kneehigh
Want to book it? Send me an email, mariehamilton@live.co.uk