50 Favourite Musicals: 1d: SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF FLEET STREET (1979) (Stephen Sondheim)

The 50 shows that have stood out down the years and, as we get up among the paint cards, the shows that have become the cast recording of my life. So here we are...  a year and 10 months in the making and we have reached the stage musical that is my favourite ever - and I cannot name one out of the four shows that I have left to consider.

I have tried every criteria, every angle and there is simply no way I can say that one of the four is better than the other.  So let's go... my Top Four Number One's (in alphabetical order)

First performed: 1979, Uris Theatre, NY

First seen by me: 1985, Half Moon Theatre, London

Productions seen: ten

Score: Stephen Sondheim

Book: Hugh Wheeler

Plot: Sweeney Todd arrives back in Victorian London, rescued from a floating raft by young sailor Anthony,  He visits the Fleet Street pie shop of the widow Nellie Lovett who recognises him as Benjamin Barker, the barber who worked above her shop fifteen years before.  Barker was transported to Australia by the corrupt pair Judge Turpin and Beadle Bamford so the Judge could rape Barker's wife Lucy.  Mrs Lovett tells Sweeney his wife poisoned herself and his young daughter Johanna is now the Judge's ward who he intends to marry.  Mrs Lovett presents him with his old razors and he starts to work again, plotting his revenge - and as the bodies pile up, Mrs Lovett has a solution...

Five memorable numbers: A LITTLE PRIEST, THE WORST PIES IN LONDON, THE BALLAD OF SWEENEY TODD, JOHANNA, PRETTY WOMEN
,
In 1973, while in London for the UK premiere of GYPSY, Stephen Sondheim went to the Theatre Royal Stratford East to see Chris Bond's version of the melodrama SWEENEY TODD.  Sondheim enjoyed the Grand Guignol atmosphere and how street songs were incorporated into the action but what really excited him was how Bond changed the plot from a penny-dreadful melodrama into a revenge thriller with Sweeney seeking vengeance on Judge Turpin: an idea was born.  In 1979, SWEENEY TODD: THE DEMON BARBER OF LONDON opened on Broadway starring Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury and, the following year, in London with Denis Quilley and Sheila Hancock and although audiences couldn't warm to the American take on a London villain, London has since taken the show to it's heart as was Sondheim's original wish - the original production (despite it's short run) won the Olivier Award for Best Musical and it has since won two further Oliviers for Best Musical Revival.

Over time I realised I could happily watch a good production of SWEENEY TODD every day.  I have seen it ten times with only two productions I didn't like - a ghastly am-dram one at the Bloomsbury Theatre in 1992 and the actor/musician John Doyle production that most loved but just got on my nerves.  I think eight out of ten is a very good batting average.  The show is a good example of why Sondheim always gives praise to his book writers.  Hugh Wheeler's book for SWEENEY is a classic of musical storytelling, there are nine main characters who are all vividly drawn and it not only stands up to repeated viewings but the book always throws up things I had never noticed before; despite the different directorial takes on it, it just *works*.  Sondheim's score acts as an aural fog that whisps, curls and evelopes the characters through the plot, not only through the songs but the relentless underscoring that happens throughout the show, which gives the audience a feeling of foreboding... that all the characters are on a moving path to a very dark place.  What I particularly love about the show is, after the introductory "The Ballad of Sweeney Todd" which gives you a flavour of the ominous atmosphere of the show, you are pitched right into the action with Sweeney and Anthony arriving in London, having their first meeting with the Beggar Woman, and onto the visit to the Pie Shop and the first appearance of Mrs Lovett - all within ten minutes.

Then you are off on the wonderful runaway ghost train that is SWEENEY TODD, an unstoppable ride to it's shattering conclusion.  As I have often said, the final 20 minutes of the show - if done right - should be one of the most relentlessly scary things you can experience, even if you know the show  It has an internal motor that if stoked properly keeps gathering pace leaving dead bodies in it's wake and an icy, clammy grip on the back of your neck.  My first introduction to the musical was through the Broadway cast recording which, for me, is still is the definitive version of the score, capturing the remarkable performances of Len Cariou and Angela Lansbury.  In 1981 the US tour was filmed in Los Angeles with Lansbury's outrageous, glorious turn as Nellie Lovett immortalised with George Hearn, partnering her perfectly as Sweeney.  It's interesting that when first offered the role Lansbury hesitated - she pointed out the show was called SWEENEY TODD and was reluctant to play what she felt was a less-than-lead role.  Sondheim 'auditioned' some of Mrs Lovett's songs for her and she realised that she was being given the chance to create from the ground up such a memorable character and she was onboard.  My first experience seeing it live was at the long-gone Half Moon Theatre in 1985, directed by Chris Bond, the writer of the original play that Sondheim had seen 12 years before.  It was wonderful to see it finally and to see the book and score working as one, and it starred Leon Greene's larger-than-life Sweeney.  In 1989 I saw it again, this time on Broadway at the Circle In The Square, the first of many 'chamber' versions of the show, with Bob Gunton and Beth Fowler as the killer couple.

SWEENEY made a triumphant return to London in the National Theatre's production directed by Declan Donnellan in 1993.  Staged again in a 'chamber' version, it was a wonderfully thrilling production with an excellent cast of Alun Armstrong as Sweeney, Adrian Lester as a charismatic Anthony, Barry James as Beadle Bamford and Denis Quilley, London's original Sweeney, now playing Judge Turpin.  But they were overshadowed by Julia McKenzie's magnificent Mrs Lovett - a gin-soaked cockney harridan, hilarious and amoral.  She deservedly won the Olivier Award for Best Actress and later, when the show transferred to the larger Lyttelton Theatre shared the stage with Quilley again, this time returning to the role of Sweeney,  Sadly this was the last Sondheim role Julia played onstage.  The production never had a cast recording issued but the Radio 4 full-length broadcast is available on YouTube.  In 2000 the Bridewell Theatre - too close to Fleet Street for comfort - staged a prominade performance with a memorable Mrs Lovett from Jessica Martin.

In the 2010s I saw three contrasting versions: Chichester gave us Jonathan Kent's dingy between-the-wars version with Michael Ball as Sweeney and Imelda Staunton as Mrs Lovett.  Imelda gave us an all-too-real Mrs Lovett, gimlet-eyed and itching to be respectable, while Michael Ball downplayed his natural exuberance to almost a monotone.  I then saw the concert version at the London Coliseum directed by Lonny Price starring Bryn Terfel as Sweeney who of course sang the bejesus out of it and Emma Thompson finally onstage again as Mrs Lovett, playing up the comedy but also finding the step-up to the drama at the end.  It's a key moment in the second act when, while singing "Not While I'm Around", Tobias realises that Sweeney killed his boss, and, attempting to distract him, Mrs Lovett joins him in singing that nothing's going to harm him; you have to feel the murdererous intent behind the grotesque comedy harridan at that point - it's always a chilling moment and the great actresses who have played the role such as Lansbury, McKenzie, Staunton and Thompson can manage that transformation with ease.  The last production I saw was in 2016 in a final-year production by the Royal Academy of Music's Musical Theatre students, what made it special was it was at the Theatre Royal Stratford East where 43 years before, Sondheim first saw Chris Bond's original.

Again, a true wealth of video is available for SWEENEY TODD on YouTube - as I said, the full Radio 4 broadcast of Denis Quilley and Julia McKenzie in the NT's production is there - so I shall stick with that production and Julia's full-throttle "Worst Pies In London" from that year's Olivier Awards ceremony...



Then Bryn Terfel's Sweeney and Emma Thompson as Mrs Lovett delighting in her new receipe for meat pies in "A Little Priest"



and finally, the music-hall out-front performance of Lansbury, secretly laying her own plans by giving George Hearn's Sweeney only some of the truth in "Poor Thing":



I hope you have enjoyed reading about these 50 great musicals as much as I have blogging about them...

SWEENEY TODD: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street - Attend the tale...

Some productions are anticipated more than others.  One of my favourite musicals starring one of my favourite actresses who I first became acquainted with through her stage work but who has seemed lost to it forever since embracing films - oh and a birthday treat from two lovely friends.  I was on spilkes all day!

As I said, I first met Emma Thompson (both physically and artistically!) when she starred opposite Robert Lindsay in the marvellous revival of ME AND MY GIRL at the Adelphi in 1985.  For the intervening 30 years - 30 years!! - I have marvelled and felt great pride in her attaining the acclaim she has so rightly deserved as actress and writer, but have been quietly frustrated at her absence from the stage.  Her last stage performances were in 1990 when she played a caustic Helena and other-worldly Fool in the repertory season of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM/KING LEAR at the Dominon Theatre with then-husband Kenneth Branagh.

Emma has since said that the grind of being all-singing, all-dancing in ME AND MY GIRL for her run in the show was a strain which I suspect played a part in her absence from the stage although I also heard from an inside source that she had lost the bottle for live performance.

I asked her in 2006 when she was going to return to the stage and she joked that she couldn't do it while bringing up a daughter too - but who is that hidden in the chorus of SWEENEY TODD but Gaia Wise?  As I joined in the roof-raising ovation for Emma's bow I wondered "how can you turn your back on this?"  Hopefully this very short run has given her the confidence again as she really is wonderfully charismatic onstage.

Lonny Price's semi-staged production filled the Coliseum stage and spilled out into the auditorium which made it particularly thrilling to see from our great seats in the centre of the 2nd row of the Dress Circle.  SWEENEY TODD was the first in a new initiative to give the Coliseum, the home of the English National Opera and Ballet, over to a musical production once a year in attempt to get some cold, hard cash into the coffers.  How successful this idea will be is open to conjecture as a fully staged production would probably be too costly to stage for a limited run and a semi-staged usually leaves you wanting more.

It's right for big musicals to be performed on the Coliseum stage as in the 1950s KISS ME KATE, GUYS AND DOLLS, DAMN YANKEES, CAN-CAN and PYJAMA GAME all opened there, the relative failure of BELLS ARE RINGING ending this period of the theatre's history.  Of course the occasional musical has been staged by the English National Opera with varying degrees of success.

Of course the casting of Bryn Terfel as Sweeney Todd meant the opera audience would be booking too and he certainly sang the role to perfection but... This year is not only my 30th anniversary of knowing Emma but also is the 30th anniversary of my first seeing SWEENEY TODD onstage.  That was at the long-gone Half Moon Theatre in a production directed by Chris Bond, who had written the original play with music that Stephen Sondheim had seen at Stratford East in 1973.

Since then I have seen nine other productions, sometimes in raptures, sometimes baffled how they muffed it.  However the performances of Sweeney I remember fondly are when he has been played by an actor who can sing eg. Alun Armstrong and Denis Quilley at the National Theatre or Leon Greene at the Half Moon. Some have played the role in the same monotone all the way through which is annoying as Sweeney swings from despair to manic exaltation and actors like the above-named can play all that range with glee. Terfel played the role as I am sure he would in an opera production - letting his singing voice do everything but to do that is to miss so much.

Emma's Mrs Lovett on the other hand was played for all it's comedic worth and she sang it well too.  If she slightly missed out on the darker side of Mrs Lovett - she is the real engine for all the action once Sweeney walks into her shop - I suspect that can only ever really be brought out in a properly staged production. She did rise to the final scene very well when tha actress playing Mrs Lovett has to change from comedienne to tragedienne.

Emma had great fun with all the comedy business that Lonny Price found for her: making her worst pies in London on a kettledrum, stealing a seat from one of the orchestra, singling out a violinist during A LITTLE PRIEST and in a great idea, cutting Sweeney's hair while singing BY THE SEA. For her death scene - always a tricky moment in even the best production - Emma fell backwards into the orchestra pit - luckily straight into the arms of the chorus!

Philip Quast was an excellent Judge Turpin, superbly sung and as commanding as Terfel in their PRETTY WOMEN duet, and Quast was nicely partnered by Alex Gaumond as a particularly Uriah Heap-ish Beadle Bamford.  Rosalie Craig was an impressive Beggar Woman, lending her final scene a tragic pathos, and the sometimes problematic young juvs Anthony and Joanna were well sung by Matthew Seadon-Young and Katie Hall.  I felt Jack North as Tobias was a little overshadowed however.

As I said Lonny Price's vision for the sem-staging was wonderfully thought-through, using the whole of the auditorium - ingeniously so for the CITY ON FIRE scene when the lunatics really did feel all around us having escaped from Fogg's Asylum. 

The start was particularly fun: the stage was prepared for the usual concert staging, a line of music-stands along the stage apron, bouquets on stands on either side of the stage and a grand piano in front of the on-stage orchestra.  The cast walked onstage carrying their bound scripts, Emma looking regal in a flowing red dress, and launched into the brooding THE BALLAD OF SWEENEY TODD.

Halfway through, anarchy broke out with scripts hurled to the floor, music stands thrown into the orchestra pit, bouquet stands kicked over, piano toppled over and used as a podium and the large red curtain at the back is ripped down to reveal a punky backdrop - and the floaty wings of Emma's dress were ripped off!  It engaged me with Price's vision right at the get-go.  What didn't work was the obvious problem - how to do the gore?  I liked the idea of a bloody hand-print flashing on the back wall when a killing occurred but just having Sweeney's victims stand up from the chair and walk off was a bit redundant.

However what Price got exactly right was the last act which, if done right, is the most gripping theatre you will ever see as the action suddenly gathers pace and all the characters face their destinies.  Here, it was thrilling and as usual the show left me breathless!

I am sometimes asked what my favourite Stephen Sondhein score is and I have to admit the sheer range and emotional depth of SWEENEY TODD makes it my favourite and to hear it played by the English National Opera Orchestra was another absolute pleasure in a production that moved me to very happy tears.  You made me blub again Emma!!