Sweeney Todd: A review of Bishop’s Stortford Musical Theatre Company’s production of Stephen Sondheim’s classic at South Mill Arts
A play is like a pie: the script is the recipe, the visual production aspects – set, lighting, costumes, make-up – are the pastry and the cast is the filling.
The concept of people as pie fillings was very much in the minds of the six audiences that sat down to savour Bishop’s Stortford Musical Theatre Company’s production of Sweeney Todd at South Mill Arts last week, directed by David Rutter in his fourth outing as ‘head chef’.
Todd is the “Demon Barber of Fleet Street” who “serves a dark and vengeful God” by slitting his customers’ throats in the chair and sending them down a chute to Mrs Lovett’s pie shop below, where she uses them in her products, thereby breathing new life into her ailing business.
The title character originated in a story published in a weekly Victorian penny dreadful in the winter of 1846-47. Before the ending had been revealed in print, the bloodthirsty barber’s story had been turned into a play, and by the 1870s Todd was a familiar character to most Victorians.
Stephen Sondheim’s 1979 musical – the first Sondheim that BSMTC has staged – is based on Christopher Bond’s 1970 play, which introduced a backstory and motivation to Todd’s crimes. Returning to London after 15 years of unjust incarceration in an Australian penal colony, Benjamin Barker – his real name – seeks revenge first on the corrupt judge who exiled him and then raped his wife, Lucy, driving her mad, and then on all humanity through his clients.
More than 80% of the production is set to music, either sung or underscoring dialogue. As such, BSMTC employed a live 15-piece orchestra (surely one of its biggest ever), with not one but two musical directors, orchestra conductor Gerald Hindes and Paul Garner, and the cast of 36 had a meaty vocal task. On this score, credit to sound man Will Jamieson for getting the balance between the orchestra pit and the stage spot on.
Granville Rush’s set design, the costumes (Helen Bickley and Susannah Dunn) and the make-up especially (artists unknown) gelled deliciously to set the scene of a dark and grimy Victorian London. The ensemble members’ entrance one by one instilled an immediate sense of foreboding. A great starter. As for the filling…
When it came to casting for Sweeney Todd’s Broadway run, Sondheim thought stage veteran Angela Lansbury would add needed comedy to the grim tale as the lunatic cockney shopkeeper, but she needed to be convinced. She was a star and, as she pointed out to Sondheim: “Your show is not called Nellie Lovett, it’s called Sweeney Todd. And I’m the second banana.”
Well, there was no hint of second banana – and certainly no slip-ups – about Becky Faulkner in BSMTC’s production. If ever a part was made for this talented all-round performer, it was Nellie Lovett, the cheery, chatty but completely amoral pie maker who falls for Todd.
Her performance was a joy to behold, bringing together her strengths in acting, singing and comic timing – illustrated perfectly in the Act I closing number, the witty, laugh-out-loud A Little Priest (a song that Sondheim wrote especially to convince Dame Angela).
Initially Becky was not going to audition. The four audiences who saw her (Annabel Clapham was Mrs Lovett for two of the shows) are glad she did.
Daniel Abbott had nine weeks’ notice to play Todd after a change to the original casting. The BSMTC chair stepped up to the bass-baritone role and underlined his burgeoning leading man status as the morose and vengeful barber. Becky and Daniel went together like... steak and kidney.
Emma Kent as Todd’s beautiful young daughter, Johanna Barker – raised by her father’s nemesis, Judge Turpin, as his ward – and Hayley Gillies as the Beggar Woman, a mad crone who is eventually identified as Todd’s wife Lucy, were strong supports.
Among the men, BSMTC debutant Oli Burdino caught the eye as a suitably slimy Beadle Bamford, the corrupt official who is the judge’s right-hand man; Daniel Kempthorne was Anthony Hope, the young sailor who has rescued Todd at sea and then, having fallen in love with her, rescues his daughter Johanna from the judge’s clutches; and Yves Randle made a menacing Judge Turpin.
John Quick delivered a fine cameo as Alfredo Pirelli, a flashy “Italian” barber who is in fact Irish conman Daniel O’Higgins, who “meats” his premature demise when he tries to blackmail his former employer, Barker/Todd.
And last but by no means least, the Wednesday, Friday and Saturday audiences will have witnessed the emergence of a bright young star in Carter Faulkner, the 13-year-old son of leading lady Becky, as Pirelli’s sidekick Tobias Ragg, who is taken under Mrs Lovett’s wing and is distrustful of Todd. The scenes that mother and son shared revealed their natural chemistry.
In the words of at least two audience members making their way out of the auditorium at the interval, young Carter lifted the production at his entrance and more than held his own among the adults. He shared the role of Toby with Noah Tucker, a fellow member of Sawbridgeworth’s Diverse Performing Arts.
Just one sour note: the patchy vocal performances of one or two of the men on Saturday night illustrated the fact that BSMTC struggles for strength in depth among its male membership.
At almost three hours (including a 20-minute interval), it was longer than most musicals, but at no point did I feel that I was struggling to finish.
Sweeney Todd is one of the director’s favourites, and that came across. If Saturday night’s closing performance was anything to go by, Rutter, his cast and crew can be proud of having pulled off a feast for the eyes and ears – though my tastebuds were a little on edge; no pies for a while.
Paul Winspear
