The story of the battle between two not entirely respectable businessmen, the beggar clan king Peachum and the burglar king Macheath, known as Mackie Messer, was advertised as a ‘play with music’ at its premiere in 1928 and was essentially the first German-language musical. Bertolt Brecht wrote the text together with Elisabeth Hauptmann, while Kurt Weill composed the immortal music. The three of them achieved a legendary worldwide success. In the new version at the St. Pauli Theatre, the songs are brought back to the fore in all their force. And if you look around, not only in the small world of the neighbourhood, but also in the big world of politics, you realise that not much has changed since Brecht's analysis.