Sweeney Todd – review

Stephen Sondheim's musical shocker borrows from the Grand Guignol narrative of Victorian penny dreadfuls and the cathartic arc of Jacobean revenge drama. Elizabeth Newman's production keeps a foot in both camps but introduces bio-suited forensic teams in keeping with an episode of CSI: Fleet Street. You can't accuse the production of failing in its research. Newman consulted scientific investigators on the subject of blood-spatter analysis and a local barber to demonstrate the finer points of cut-throat technique . It might count as a bit of an oversight that she didn't employ a baker to advise on pie crusts, though the attention to detail lends credibility to the gore-fest. Sondheim said the musical is primarily a study of obsession , and Newman emphasises the manner in which each of the characters is subject to their particular perversion. Lucy Sierra's set is a form of fetish dungeon in which Ruth Alexander Rubin's impressively sung Mrs Lovett becomes a comely dominatrix; Mark Heenehan's Judge Turpin is a tormented self-flagellator and Sarah Vezmar's Johanna a caged bird with a fondness for feathers. Tobias Beer's shark-eyed Sweeney is less a demon barber than a demon fiddler who despatches his victims by drawing a violin bow across their throats. Actor-musicians are par for the course in Sondheim these days , though the success with which Newman integrates instruments into the action is variable. Mrs Lovett's acquisition of a plastic portable keyboard feels like an anachronism too far. As a cross between a synthesiser and a guitar, it serves to sum up the production: potentially a combination of the best of all worlds, it can seem at times to be neither one thing nor the other.