Skip to main content
Dodgy cartoon Marx
ANGUS REID mulls over the bizarre rationale behind the desire to set the life of Karl Marx to music
Marx in London

Marx in London! 
Theatre Royal, Glasgow

JONATHAN DOVE’s operetta Marx in London! covers more or less the same ground as Howard Zinn’s 1999 play Marx in Soho, compressing into a single day in 1871 a heady mix of domestic trials (infidelities, repossessions and extra-marital children), eminent figures (Engels, Eleanor Marx and the anarchist Bakunin for Zinn, the fictional socialist Melanzone for Dove) and political events (the 1871 Paris Commune).

But if Zinn’s one-man show is an exhilarating defence of socialism by a committed activist and aimed at the present day, so Dove’s is a farce that fixes the attention of the audience on its own cleverness, that shuns politics, and aims at an imaginary moment in the past that acknowledges Marx as memorable, but antiquated.

On one hand, Marx is as much fair game for a debunking as any other eminent Victorian: he is instantly recognisable, he drank, smoked and lived beyond his means, and after all, Philip Glass did Einstein, and John Adams did Nixon and Mao, as operas. 

Morning Star call for advertising
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
More from this author
colourists 1
Exhibition review / 21 March 2025
21 March 2025
While the group known as the Colourists certainly reinvigorated Scottish painting, a new show is a welcome chance to reassess them, writes ANGUS REID
family
Film of the Week: / 20 March 2025
20 March 2025
ANGUS REID recommends an exquisite drama about the disturbing impact of the one child policy in contemporary China
BL
Short Story / 7 February 2025
7 February 2025
The phrase “cruel to be kind” comes from Hamlet, but Shakespeare’s Prince didn’t go in for kidnap, explosive punches, and cigarette deprivation. Tam is different.
fanon
BenchMarx / 28 January 2025
28 January 2025
ANGUS REID deconstructs a popular contemporary novel aimed at a ‘queer’ young adult readership