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Sweeney is Coming... |
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Something alchemic seems to happen to musicals staged in the Union Theatre’s delightfully derelict space. Following critically acclaimed productions of shows such as ‘The Mikado’ and ‘Annie Get Your Gun’, artistic director Sasha Regan once again strikes theatrical gold with a new production of ‘Sweeney Todd’.
With its cavernous, under-the-arches location and 17-strong cast, Regan and musical director Christopher Mundy bring Stephen Sondheim’s Tony and Olivier Award-winning gothic musical to sonorous life. In Victorian London, Benjamin Barker is shipped off to Australia on trumped-up charges. Fifteen years later, he returns to find his daughter adopted by his evil opponent and his beloved wife apparently poisoned. So he becomes Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, serving up rough justice in the shape of a close shave and some dodgy meat pies. Designer Sophie Mosberger makes good use of the location with a striking walk-round and split-set combo, augmented by Steve Miller’s atmospheric lighting where wooden slats are backlit, faces are illuminated by candles and exits and entrances are flung open, flooding the dark with infernal light. Led by Mundy on piano and organ, the cast tackles the oft-oblique score with gusto. Christopher Howell is a tempest of grief and wrath as Sweeney, bellowing song and script like a man possessed, while Emma Francis’s raven haired Mrs Lovett is deliciously amoral. David Kristopher-Brown as the extravagantly operatic Pirelli and Nigel Pilkington’s pious Beadle Bamford also provide stand-out support in the Union’s latest fringe feat. Evening Standard
It Is a rare and heartening sight to see a queue for returns forming in a Fringe theatre on a cold Tuesday evening. Yet such is the Union’s burgeoning reputation for innovative stagings of musicals — for which it was rightly awarded a Peter Brook Empty Space Award this year — that demand is high and seats are already scarce for this superb revival of Stephen Sondheim’s superior gore fest. The sheer scale of the Union’s ambition here would put not only its peers but also better-funded rivals to shame.The live accompaniment is niftily and tunefully provided by a grand piano and a church organ. There is a cast of 17, including a West End-style chorus of eight, and they are all better singers than Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter, which is good news for Sondheim’s sophisticated, literate lyrics. Director Sasha Regan fills the tiny playing area so cleverly that all of grey, sinister, stinking London is suggested. Mrs Lovett, joyously played by Emma Francis, still hasn’t read a cookbook, revelling in her claim to produce “The Worst Pies in London”. An enterprising businesswoman, she’s certainly got the hots for Christopher Howell’s bloody yet oddly bloodless Todd, who would better suggest a man on a revenge mission if he were a little more minatory. Leon Kay and Katie Stokes are outstanding as the pure-voiced young lovers who develop a fatal habit for wrong times and wrong places.Occasionally the lack of microphones means that we lose important words of plot-heavy songs, yet the opportunity to hear performers’ voices unadorned like this is rare in our heavily amplified times. The Stage
The railway arch cavern of the Union, which so many productions have to work against, provides additional atmosphere to Sondheim’s love letter to the decrepit brutality of old London. Combined with a strong ensemble performance, it creates a winning version of the musical. Sunday Express
I've now seen Sondheim's magnificent Sweeney Todd, last year transformed into an insinuating Gothic horror movie musical by Tim Burton, everywhere from the West End and National Theatre to the Royal Opera House and New York City Opera but seldom have I seen it as chillingly intimate and scarily effective as in the dark, dank Southwark railway arch that is the tiny Union Theatre. The venue recently won the Peter Brook Empty Space Award for fringe theatres and this production is a triamphant validation of that achievement. Staged with stunning resourcefulness by Sasha Regan, it is also sung and acted with a close-up intensity by a sensational young cast who give it their brooding all. Not to be missed...if you can get a ticket that is. What's on Stage
I was slightly nervous about returning to the Union so soon after the barn-stormer that was The Mikado; surely lightening can’t strike Southwark twice, so soon? Ha! This Sweeney Todd is as grimy, gritty, delicious and blood thirsty as one would expect from one of London’s premier fringe venues. I’d never seen the musical before and I was sitting at the edge of my seat as the plot unravelled, and there I remained until the very end. Sweeney Todd returns from serving time Down Under to discover that his wife is dead and his daughter the ward of the terrifyingly creepy Judge Turpin – the man responsible for his incarceration. He meets up with Mrs Lovett, who immediately starts giving him the glad-eye, a place to stay and help to re-start his business as a barber. The story fairly clips along, what with sanctimonious judges, murderous intentions, preening policemen, hysterical Italians, maidens in distress and sailors in love. Relishing every spoken and sung word are a uniformly well-cast cast. Christopher Howell (Ko-Ko in the aforementioned Mikado) carries the show as if it was no weight at all and is matched note for note by an impressively lascivious Emma Francis as Mrs Lovett who fairly slinks around the stage owning every step. The singing is just a joy, made all the sweeter by the highly appropriate rough and readiness of the set and costume design. Special mentions to Nigel Pilkington (Beadle Bamford), newcomer Katie Stokes (Johanna), Roisin Sullivan (Beggar Woman) and David Krisopher-Brown (Pirelli) whose voices will stay with me for days. Sondheim writes mind-boggling clever melodies, which do almost the opposite of what you are expecting, it is the theatrical equivalent of a high wire act and the cast nail every line. One has to wonder when one of the other London theatres are going to make director Sasha Regan an offer she can’t refuse – you can only imagine what she could do with a bigger budget and a bigger space. Silly me, there was no need for any nerves - the Union have done it again. Classical Source
No slouch when it comes to staging difficult musicals, Sasha Regan at the tiny Union Theatre near Waterloo has added “Sweeney Todd” to her list of successful Broadway revivals. During the decade of the Union’s existence she has staged “Cabaret”, “Annie Get Your Gun”, “The Pajama Game” and all-male versions of “HMS Pinafore” and “The Mikado”. Every single production has been a treat; actually, Regan has produced better versions of these shows than anybody else in living memory. They seem to come alive at the Union whereas shows such as “Annie Get Your Gun” and “The Pajama Game” have in recent years died on their feet elsewhere. She has managed to make even Gilbert & Sullivan seem fresh-minted. Regan is both director and executive producer on “Sweeney Todd” and within a small space under a railway arch in Southwark she is working miracles. The show is played out simply and effectively with the chorus moving its way in and out the audience while the main action is staged in a centre space for Mrs Lovett’s pie shop with a raised platform representing Sweeney’s upstairs barbershop. It is the chorus-work that is the most chilling thing about Sondheim’s thriller and here it works exceptionally well. The lack of such in the recent film version drains it almost entirely of any menace. As is usual Regan has a mainly young cast geared to making the musical form acceptable and credible. Christopher Howell has the necessary presence for Sweeney, a man obsessed by his seeking revenge for the way his family was destroyed while he was sent to Australia on a trumped-up charge by Judge Turpin (Stephen Rashbook) who in his way is even more despicable than Todd, in the way he keeps his ward Johanna under lock and key and finally commits her to an asylum when Todd’s seafaring friend Anthony falls in love with the girl. It’s not totally grim, however, because his partner-in-crime, Nellie Lovett, finds a way of making a success of both Todd’s barbershop and her failing pie emporium. Upstairs Todd gives his customers the closest shave of their lives and then dispatches them downstairs to be ground-up and popped into Nellie’s pies. It’s an appalling thought but Sondheim makes light of it in the comic exchanges between Todd and Lovett. The numbers ‘The worst pies in London’ and ‘A little priest’ bring the house down by providing comic relief in this otherwise grisly grand guignol. We almost feel sorry for their plight. Emma Francis’s Mrs Lovett is more glamorous than usual. Ever since Angela Lansbury created the role in the original Broadway production, Nellie has been a caricature with rouged cheeks and pigtails, a pantomime figure of fun. However, Francis gets to the heart of the part and makes this silly woman at times all too real. Adam Ellis as Tobias, Nellie’s little helper in the pie shop, has one of the best ballads in the show (although the whole score is a masterpiece) in ‘Not while I’m around’ which is very moving in the simplicity of its sentiments. Leon Kay is strong as Anthony although his very Northern accent seems a bit unsettling. Katie Stokes sings prettily as Johanna and there is excellent support from Róisin Sullivan as the Beggar Woman, David Kristopher-Brown as Pirelli and Nigel Pilkington as Beadle Bamford. Regan and choreographer Sally Brooks ensure that the complete space is used to its fullest extent, while Sophie Mosberger’s designs cope with the simplest of effects for the slashing of the customers’ throats and the roar of the big oven in the cookhouse. My only cavil is the positioning of the piano and its persistent sound that at times drowns out the lyrics. It’s probably an acoustic thing, but the production is so good that it almost erases memories of that very indifferent movie version. Don’t miss! British Theatre Guide
The Union Theatre with its exposed brick work, the musty smell of damp and trains intermittently running overhead is the perfect setting for Steven Sondheim's musical Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. After twenty years imprisonment for a crime he didn't commit, Benjamin Barker (Christopher Howell) travels back to London to discover he has lost his wife and daughter. He returns to his former profession as a barber (under the new name of Sweeney Todd) with the help of local pie shop owner Mrs Lovett (Emma Francis). Sweeney quickly re-discovers his passion for shaving and gives the folk of Fleet Street the closest shaves of their lives - which has a surprising impact on Mrs Lovett's pie shop. As the production follows in the footsteps of Tim Burton's lavish film production staring Jonny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter, it is impossible to avoid comparisons. With probably a millionth of Burton's budget, the Union Theatre's production of Sweeney Todd does not disappoint. Sweeney Todd is arguably Sondheim's most challenging and complicated score with its multiple harmonies, twisting and turning in unexpected directions. Musical director Christopher Mundy, with only two pianos, handles this mammoth task with skilful ease. Taking advantage of the space and its natural dinginess, the set is minimal with lighting indicating the changes in space and time and candles illuminating the actor's faces. Sasha Regan's subtle, understated direction allows the chilling story of Sweeney Todd and his murderous appetite to be told without becoming farcical. Howell as Sweeney gives an unnerving performance as his penchant for killing develops, whilst his rich and powerful vocals portray the pain and suffering of this broken man. Francis, the seductive Mrs Lovett, provides a great contrast to the sombre Sweeney with her witty sarcasm and there is a fiery chemistry between the pair, aroused by their killing spree. Supported by a strong cast and a hilarious cameo from Nigel Pilkington as the ever so camp Beadle Bamford, this production of Sweeney Todd is comparable to any West End musical. Certainly not your typical run up to Christmas show, it is well worth a visit, although I'd probably give their pies a miss.
"It is an enjoyable evening that, with its flickering candles and lurking shadows, conjures the impending doom of a city on fire" "If anyone were thinking of spending an evening watching Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd on DVD, my advice couldn’t be clearer. You’ll have a far more enjoyable and fulfilling night by going to see this production instead" |
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