Moll Flanders

Daniel Defoe's famous eighteenth-century novel about a girl born in Newgate Gaol: "Twelve Year a Whore, Five Times a Wife (whereof once to her own Brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia" who"at last grew Riche, liv'd in Honest and died a Penitent" is brought to the stage in this rumbustious musical written by Claire Luckham. The tale of Moll's many fortunes and misfortunes as she travels from Newgate Gaol to Colchester to Virginia to Bath to Liverpool to London and back again is told in a vivid series of deft, funny scenes. Travel, highway robbery, bloodsports, thieving, marriage and sex become Moll's picaresque pastimes as, with unfailing optimism, she seeks security in a world where the odds are stacked against her. The songs have fresh and witty lyrics by Paul Leigh and the music, by George Stiles, uses English folk-tunes - from "Greensleeves"to "Over the Hills and Far Away" - to evoke the period feel.