Sweeney Todd
Sweeney Todd
A revival of Stephen Sondheim’s gory gothic musical thriller, at Birmingham Rep.
When I first saw this production announced, with two of my musical theatre heroes in the cast, I was immediately hooked, but I wasn’t sure if I could manage the trip within my means. More recently, after seeing the raft of overwhelmingly positive reviews, I decided to take the plunge, book the ticket and make the plans. As you’ll see from the rest of this review, I certainly don’t regret it.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street is one of my favourite musicals, it is delightfully dark and twisted, but also filled with emotions and humour too. I was introduced to it via Tim Burton’s almost-monochrome vision on film, and then I further explored the various productions and recordings with their unabridged versions. Before now, I had only seen it in person at one performance, from a lovely local theatre company, so I was very keen to ‘attend the tale’ with a full scale production for the first time.
Upon entering the auditorium, the atmosphere was immediately heady, with a foreboding soundscape, shafts of light playing through the smoke hanging in the air and a glorious depiction of Satan’s fall to earth on the front cloth, gently shifting under moving lights. As everyone filtered into their seats the buzz was electrifying, anticipation high.
And suddenly, the show begins. With the gorgeous organ-led overture and the dimming of the lights into darkness, as the clouds of the aforementioned cloth start to burn with fiery oranges - a fitting visual motif for the descent of the story to follow. As the stage is then revealed we also get our first look at the imposing angel of justice who watches blindly over everything that happens in this production. I had - of course - seen some production images ahead of time, but they could certainly not convey the sheer magnitude of this wonderful set, both minimal and grand in its execution.
Through the carefully controlled smoke vents; the lighting through the upstage doors, down from the flies and from cleverly concealed spaces in the sides; and the central lifting platform between the two large staircases at either side, it is remarkable how so much can be conveyed with so little, and the changes of scene are effortless yet marvellous in their simple and smooth transitions. The few props which are brought on are enough to provide the finer details in a scene without crowding the space - overall very effective. Plus I must give a special nod to the ‘working’ meat grinder which ominously appears as the safety curtain rises from the interval and then stays visible throughout Act Two, another excellent visual cue. All of this magnificence coupled with the excellent, opulent and well-thought-out costume decisions, designer Elin Steele has done masterful work with her new vision of the setting.
I must say more about the lighting, too - deftly designed by Rory Beaton. Again, there was so much achieved with not a hint of overbearingness or being too distractingly prominent. From the fantastically atmospheric backlighting through the door spaces, to the carefully accented side lighting in the more somber scenes, and also the moments of animation to help those transitions glide through, or to further evoke the locations such as sewers, the madhouse or just the burning of the oven. The cataclysmic ‘Epiphany’ towards the end of Act One is a shining vision of bright and wildly flickering madness to reflect the underlying adrenaline of the scene, and the building tension towards the spectacular conclusion of the story is marked by the suitably dark and intensely contrasting blues and fiery oranges.
Turning to a crucial element in a musical - the music, the work of Dr John Rigby to reduce an orchestra to just seven players is nothing short of witchcraft, such was the power and majesty of their collective sound. A score such as this one should feel both deeply guttural and delicately fancy-footed in equal measure, as does the story flow, and both of those are presented sumptuously here. The sound design compliments the score beautifully too, with a great variety of horrendously industrial and mechanical clunks, grinds and gurgles - Kelsh Buckman-Drage has clearly had a lot of fun with this. My only slight downer here is that the “Sweeney scream” bloodcurdling as it was, just wasn’t quite loud enough for my tastes - perhaps just an unintended holdover from the afternoon’s chilled performance.
To the players, then. Let’s go in the other direction, up the list, starting with the Ensemble - Emily Ivana Hawkins and Hadrian Delacey, both of whom are given plenty to do in filling out the various crowd scenes (assisted by whichever other players are not in their main characters at the time) and do so brilliantly, they work hard to give those moments the presence of many more people than actually number on stage, it pays off.
Silas Wyatt-Barke is delightfully slimy in the role of Pirelli, playing the mountebank’s charm with effortless sleaze and practically floating around the stage in his pomposity. When the façade drops it is tremendously chilling too - exactly as it should be.
Florence Andrews brings a wonderfully deep sadness to the role of the Beggar Woman, her pitiful hobbling contrasting with the turns of flitting hyperactivity and later the viscerally heart-breaking revelation of the whimsical innocence hidden underneath.
Jack Gibson makes for a simply superb Tobias, with his childlike gleeful energy shining from his introduction, with his cheeky charm sparkling through in his singing voice - and then with his descent through misplaced loyalty to his destination at the tail end of the story, we can truly feel the fall along with him.
Julius D’Silva is a tremendous fit for the role of the sycophantic Beadle, playing perfectly the balance of the brown-nosing outward facing persona and the more vicious and ruthless true nature underneath.
Jo Stephenson brought to life the delicate innocence of Johanna stunningly, and her vocals are simply phenomenal too, the misunderstood pain and yearning in her opening song gorgeously rendered in the lightness of her voice. Her feelings towards the judge, first respect then later disgust and repulsion, are so wonderfully presented, and counterpointed by the initially hesitant building of trust towards the younger suitor.
Here we turn to Shem Omari James as Anthony who is superbly matched, with his powering vocals and charming bravado in perfect measure - his rendition of ‘Johanna’ and particularly the line “I’ll steal you” was the first (voiced) moment of the show to give me goosebumps, I found myself sat in my seat practically fizzing from all of the bestowed passion in his performance.
Now I must admit, I was not immediately charmed by Meow Meow as Mrs Lovett - her introductory song, ‘The Worst Pies in London’ did not land as I expected it to, but as she continued to sing I realised that something was off: some of the highest notes had been lowered, and it seemed like she was struggling a little even with the lower register phrases too. I later learned that she has been dealing with some throat issues, as her non-appearance was kindly explained after the show by security at the stage door. Therefor I must offer all credit to her for continuing anyway, and indeed her physicality did not suffer in the slightest - she had the eccentric movements of Mrs Lovett in that introduction down to a tee. And then, I don’t know what kind of backstage magic spell she used, for the rest of the show after this she was absolutely superb, her singing seemingly completely recovered. She brought a fantastic nuance with her own unique spin to this iconic role, which continued to delight the entire audience throughout.
Now to my aforementioned heroes, and firstly David Bedella who gives us a supremely sinister and literally terrifying Judge Turpin. David can clearly very easily draw from his vast and commanding experience across a great many villainous or morally questionable roles - my introduction to his wonderful work was as Warm-up Guy/Satan in the (criminally underrated) Jerry Springer The Opera, for example - and he also has previous experience of this show from the perspective of the role of Sweeney himself too. Here, he plays the unconventionally pious and underhanded judge with a finely rendered assuredness and burningly fierce gravitas - particularly notable in his perfectly horrendous rendition of the ‘Mea Culpa’ scene, which many productions choose to omit, and which left apparently a large swathe of the audience noticeably uncomfortable - for good reason. The wonderful depths of David’s vocal abilities are put to excellent use throughout this production in this monstrous role, as well as with him further filling in the ghostly ensemble when not needed as the judge.
And with Ramin Karimloo as the eponymous and central tragedy of the story, Sweeney Todd - well it is nothing short of spectacular. I first saw Ramin perform when he took over the role of the Phantom in London, at the time my favourite musical. His devastatingly beautiful performance brought to life the character’s pains in a way I had never experienced before, and there’s a very good reason he has played the character so often since. Back to this production though, and he’s done it again - Ramin brings a deep brooding and vigorous determination to the character that feels incredibly potent and fresh. His relentless determination and dedication is palpable as the central story continues, and his arrival at the explosive tipping point of ‘Epiphany’ seethes with the passionate madness it deserves. I was locked in place, unable to look away and utterly captivated by the raw emotion in his powerful voice. The thunderous applause as that song ended could easily have gone all night, I think. As Sweeney’s descent into the incorrigible pursuit of vengeance goes on, leading to the inevitable pain and tragedy of how his story ends, we can feel every thump of the heart and soul in Ramin’s performance as if they are our own. To reiterate, nothing short of spectacular.
And thus, by combination of all of these fantastical elements we are presented with a simply sublime new take on Sondheim’s gothic musical masterpiece that thrills, horrifies, amuses and completely enthrals us throughout. Director Joe Murphy’s clear vision and meticulous mindset in his approach to the production has paid off in spades. This is a perfect example of the power of theatre - sumptuous spectacle, bursting with emotion and depth, delighting the entire audience so completely. The electrifying experience will certainly stay with me forever as one of the very greatest things I have ever seen brought to a stage.
🪒🪒🪒🪒🪒 / 5
The production continues until Saturday 15th August, if you find yourself able, you simply must treat yourself to its delectable darkness.
Find more information, official photos/videos, and book your tickets at Birmingham Rep’s website.
I was not compensated for or invited to review this show, I bought my own ticket and have written of my own volition.
