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Who would have thought that stern-looking Karl Marx could provide such rich comic pickings for Jonathan Dove’s madcap opera Marx in London! Scottish Opera’s riotous UK premiere rightly deserves the exclamation mark for its knock-out performances, visual splendour and oodles of mirth.

Dove’s punchy music is rooted in his own strident voice with a hint of Philip Glass in the swirling woodwinds, Louis Andriessen bombast in the weighty brass and a nod to Bernard Herrmann’s Psycho­ – Jenny Marx’s entrance is forewarned by screechy strings.

'Stephen Barlow’s imaginative direction unfurled yet more layers of mischief'

Conductor David Parry and the orchestra captured the energetic momentum of the score with brilliance and precision while Charles Hart’s tightly-knit libretto sparkled with innuendo, word play and the delicious anticipation of rhymed endings. He managed to squeeze numerous woeful episodes from the revolutionary socialist’s life into one action-packed 1871 August day.

Credit: James Glossop

Stephen Barlow’s imaginative direction unfurled yet more layers of mischief and a giddy array of references from the Marx Brothers to Oscar Wilde and Sherlock Holmes. Designer Yannis Thavoris’s and video designer PJ McEvoy weaved their own jokes into the quirky sets and backdrops reminiscent of the cutout tableaux in Wes Anderson’s movies.

This operatic farce demanded split-second timing and much physical activity from the superb line-up of singers as they dashed around the stage and hurdled over rotating sets. Roland Wood brilliantly inhabited Marx with all his complexities and contradictions; dodging debt-collectors and the police while trying to seduce his housekeeper/lover Helene (Lucy Schaufer) and finish his communist tracts. As his long-suffering wife Jenny, Orla Boylan had a formidable Valkyrie-like voice and presence. But her gin-soaked scene with Helene – another little drink – revealed her vulnerability as did her bitter sweet aria cataloguing the losses she’d incurred, including four children, traipsing around Europe after her husband.

As Tussi, Marx’s daughter, Rebecca Bottone lit up the stage with her verve and sky-high notes. Alasdair Elliott as Marx’s friend and partner in capitalism Friedrich Engels, made the best entrance – on a Penny Farthing sporting a pair of angel’s wings –Jamie MacDougall’s spy had the best disguises while It was left to the chorus/workers to convey Marx’s communist messaging.

Shimmering cutlery, secrets revealed and plot twists galore, not to mention seriously good music and wit, this production has it all. Steal a ticket if you have to.

Theatre Royal Glasgow 15 & 17 February, Festival Theatre Edinburgh 22 & 24 February.