This was slightly better than the Ben Kingsly version, but there are more to see, including another musical. As Sweeney peeked in on her trysts, we just got to see the guy on top.
The only complaint I had was not really every seeing Mrs Lovett's pies. Winstone and Davis were superb, as was David Warner as the local Magistrate. There are some side stories involving a policeman, and Sweeney's father that really added to the mystery.
This is a far different version than I have seen before and you are really hooked to see what is going to happen. She has a steady stream of lovers which he dispatched and presents to her as meat from his brother. They become friends as he is unable to perform, and he sets her up in her own pie shop. She is married at the time, but as barbers were also surgeons (without anesthesia, I might add) he dispatches her husband in the process of removing a stone. In the course of that relationship, we are introduced to abortion, spousal abuse, and atheism. Lovett (Essie Davis - Charlotte's Web, Maggie from The Matrix sequels). He killed him without thinking and each time got easier. He was visited in his barber shop by a jailer that brought back old memories. It is so bad, that you have to cover your nose with a handkerchief when you approach the beggars in the jail to give them a penny. Unlike Depp's version, this one with Ray Winstone (The Proposition, The Departed, Sexy Beast, Beowulf) is a truer picture of the dark and grimy London of the 18th Century. I loved it so much I am looking for other versions. Inevitably that undercuts Sondheim’s breathtaking contrast of sentiment and brutal savagery.I loved the story of Sweeney Todd after seeing Johnny Depp do the musical number. Here the multiple deaths are symbolised by a spotlit bloodstained hand while the victims creep silently off stage. One of the great moments of the show balances a love-song to Sweeney’s daughter, Johanna, with the sight of the barber himself slitting throats and sending bodies down a chute into the bakehouse. Once or twice I also found myself longing for the provocative counterpoint that only a full-scale production can provide and that is a key to Sondheim’s work. If I miss anything, it is that sense of a comfortable homebody learning to overcome her moral revulsion at murder which Imelda Staunton unforgettably brought to the role. The legendary tale of a barber who returns from wrongful imprisonment. With Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Timothy Spall. She also displays the right bright-eyed wit in A Little Priest, which celebrates cannibalism in three-four waltz time, and never lets us forget that Mrs Lovett is driven by lust for Sweeney. Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street: Directed by Tim Burton. Thompson captures excellently the pie-maker’s deference to power, almost scraping the ground as she greets Judge Turpin. She is very good, as you would expect, at the comedy of the role. I feel a touch more equivocal about Emma Thompson’s Mrs Lovett. Terfel is also a strong enough actor to communicate Sweeney’s regret when his missions is finally accomplished.Įmma Thompson (Mrs Lovett), centre, in Sweeney Todd. He phrases the lines with precision so that “There’s no place like London” is heavy with disgust yet, when he hymns the razors that will be the instrument of retribution, Terfel’s voice acquires a lyrical sheen.
But what Terfel conveys is the brooding obsessiveness of a man seeking revenge for his wife’s death and his daughter’s enslavement. It may seem odd to hear the chorus observe of Sweeney that “his voice was soft and his manner mild” since Terfel’s tones have a heroic lustre. The evening’s chief pleasure lies in the prominence it gives to the performers and Terfel is, in every sense, a massive Sweeney. Even the trunk in which the demon barber conceals his first victim has ENO clearly imprinted on the side. An upturned piano serves as a rostrum, Mrs Lovett cooks her filthy pies on top of a kettledrum and, when the pies acquire a flesh-and-blood savour, they are served from a cymbal. One of the evening’s delights, in fact, is the way it uses whatever is to hand to evoke Sondheim’s world. But the opening chorus, with its echoes of the Dies Irae, becomes the cue for a revolution as music-stands are violently overturned and formal attire shredded. As cast and chorus enter and take their places in front of and behind the onstage orchestra, we seem to be in for a concert. “Semi-staged”, however, seems a misnomer when applied to director Lonny Price’s adventurous approach.
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