To be honest I was quietly dreading Friday evening.

I had managed to book tickets for a preview screening of Tim Burton's screen version of Stephen Sondheim's SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET for Owen, Angela and myself at the National Film Theatre.

SWEENEY TODD is my favourite Sondheim musical, a score that remains as fresh and hypnotic to me after all the countless playings down the years on record, tape and cd as well as the 8 different theatre productions I have seen. The score is allied to Hugh Wheeler's propulsive book which culminates - if staged correctly - in the most gripping 15 minutes you will ever see in a theatre. You only get one shot at these things, a bad film version would be there for prosperity. The frustration of watching it knowing that the wrong people had been cast... knowing whenever you mentioned the show's greatness people would only think of the duff film.. the dvd mocking me from the racks later... I take these things seriously.

Within 5 minutes of it starting a smile started spreading across my face... I was liking what I saw.... I was loving what I saw!! Yes there were times when I momentarily thought "you've cut THAT line???" or "Where is the chorus?? You NEED them there" but the thoughts soon vanished when I realised that the line in question or the chorus actually weren't needed there - we had seen what they would only have reiterated verbally.

The opening "Ballad Of Sweeney Todd" is missing it's lyrics but the disquietening and ominous music plays under an ingenious title sequence following a stream of blood through Sweeney Todd's barbershop and Mrs. Lovett's bakehouse into the dank sewers and out into the Thames to lap around the prow of the ship that looms out of the fog carrying Sweeney back to London after 15 years away, transported to Australia on a trumped-up charge so his young wife can be seized by the venal Judge Turpin. Sweeney's psychotic quest for revenge is aided by his former neighbour Mrs. Lovett the maker of the worst pies in London in her bakery beneath his barber shop.

It's hard to know where to start the praise - the look of the film is stunning, indeed in parts it reminded me of Johnny Depp's earlier 19th Century psychopath- loose - in - the - East End movie FROM HELL. Darius Wolski's evocative cinematography of Dante Ferretti's grimy East End sets stamps the film with it's distinctive look - this part of London is truly a place where the sun never breaks through the fog caused by the workhouse and factory chimneys. Plaudits should also go to Colleen Atwood's run-down costumes and Jonathan Tunick's excellent music orchestration - the score sounds glorious.

And the cast? Johnny Depp is very good, his singing style is alarmingly 1960s Bowie, seemingly sung between clenched teeth and holding those consonants but for a non-singer he rises to the occasion with great style and a hypnotic panache. But every good Sweeney needs a good Mrs. Lovett. It is one of the great Broadway roles and I have seen it played to perfection by Beth Fowler in NY, Jessica Martin in The Bridewell Theatre, the magnificent Julia McKenzie in the National Theatre's production and of course the original, glorious performance by Angela Lansbury saved for posterity on video/dvd. How on earth could Helena Bonham Carter match them? I have had some choice words to say about this casting over the months.

Thank you Mrs. Lovett... I will have a slice of Humble Pie please!
Both Depp and Bonham Carter are slightly younger than the roles are usually played and this easily informs her performance. The trick of playing Nellie Lovett is at the denouement the actress must be able to suddenly switch tack, the music hall character must give way to her passionate declaration of love. Helena Bonham Carter's Mrs.Lovett through the film expertly suggests her unrequited love for Sweeney and creates a memorable character. If I did have one misgiving it's that I miss the pure theatricality inherent in her songs especially THE WORST PIES IN LONDON and A LITTLE PRIEST which here pass by as just other songs in the score, her light singing voice also means some of the funny lyrics in her songs don't quite hit home as well as they could. But she really was a revelation.

Otherwise the choice of actors over singers pays off with a fine gallery of villains - Alan Rickman's Judge Turpin, Timothy Spall's oily and lethal Beadle Bamford and a nice cameo from Sacha Baron Cohen as Pirelli, Todd's rival barber.If anyone loses out it's the forces of good! The roles of Anthony and Johanna suffer particularly through the loss of their duet "Kiss Me" which deprives their characters of depth but they are played well by Jamie Campbell Bower and Jayne Wisener who hints at the disturbed woman that Johanna has become by the end. It's odd that the only real singer in the cast Laura Michelle Kelly is cast as The Beggar Woman and is not taxed vocally here to any great extent. Last but by no means least is 14 year old Ed Sanders who really shines as Toby, another innocent caught up in the whirlwind of Todd's murderous rampage.

Indeed the film made me appreciate again the nihilistic vision of this musical. None of the characters who survive to "attend the tale of Sweeney Todd" are left unscarred by the events and throughout we are given constant reminders of the cheapness of life in that world. There has been some debate about the amount of bloodletting in the film but that is what the film can do better than any stage production. Rather than a quick pass over an actor's throat with a large blood-squirting razor, here we get the full gruesome effect with pulsing blood flows, flapping wounds and - something no stage production could ever capture - the sickening crack of the head on the stone flags of Mrs. Lovett's celler as the body is dispatched from Sweeney's tilting chair.

These you can trace straight to the macabre vision of Tim Burton who tells the story with great humour and verve - the narrative thunders along, all sub-plots having been trimmed to the minimum. I had at first thought he might try for some sort of redemption for Sweeney as I have always viewed his films as too optimistically gothic but far from it... he actually strikes the perfect balance in the film and the ending is chillingly simple.

The big treat was he was at the screening and it was good to hear him talk in a quick g&a afterwards with such feeling about the film while it was still fresh in our minds and the applause still ringing in our ears!

After being so pessimistic about it previously I now want it to be a huge hit... mind you I also want it to disappear so the dvd can come out as soon as possible!

If I know you... I expect you to go! Or I'll send this guy round...
and you know where that will lead...