Music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim
SYNOPSIS AND CAST
Sweeney Todd is set in the harsh streets of London in 1765, living in the shadow of Newgate Prison, Sweeney Todd tries to carve out a quiet and simple life as a barber. A chance encounter with Mrs Lovett, a local pie maker, leaves the shy and unassuming barber besotted. Later, Mrs Lovett turns to Sweeney for help. He shows her nothing but kindness and compassion and she begins to see Sweeney in a new light.
As a former child inmate at the infamous Newgate prison, Sweeney suffered terrible wrongs during his incarceration. Then, by chance, the sadistic gaoler who made his early life a living hell comes to his shop for a shave. Sweeney is repelled by the presence of his former abuser and takes revenge by slitting his throat with his razor.
Initially appalled by what he has done, Sweeney waits for the law to catch him out, but apart from an enquiry about the missing gaoler by Bow Street Runner Matthew Payne, life returns to normal. After Sweeney’s drunken father re-enters his life, Sweeney feels the urge to kill again. He seems on the verge of becoming a serial killer but his burgeoning relationship with Mrs Lovett pulls him back from the brink.
Sweeney hopes that she will bring him the love, solace and salvation he craves. Harbouring these hopes, Sweeney installs Mrs Lovett in the shop next to his, which she turns into a pie shop. One night, she makes a pass at him, and though he tries to respond, he is impotent. Shamed and angry, he starts to kill again, but this time it is the lovers that Mrs Lovett takes to her bed.
Now, murder alone no longer gratifies him – in an even greater act of revenge, he carves up the dead bodies and gives her the meat to serve in her pies. When Mrs Lovett falls gravely ill with the pox, Sweeney lovingly nurses his dear friend but confesses his terrible secret to her.
She is appalled but after she recovers her health, though not her looks, the pair forge a complex and destructive relationship and customers begin to disappear with alarming regularity.
Can Matthew Payne, the upstanding Bow Street Runner, who owes his life to Sweeney, save the barber from his inner demons? But perhaps the only way for Sweeney to stop his terrible acts of revenge is to get caught – and the story reaches its final, dramatic conclusion.
Director: Benet Catty
Music Director: Clare Caddick
CAST
| Sweeney Todd | Grand Windsor |
| Mrs Lovett | Emma Cavadino |
| Anthony | Adam Scott |
| Tobias | Andrew Smith |
| Beadle | Alan Reiss |
| Pireli | Jonathan Alden |
| Johanna | Hannah Richmond |
| Begga Woman | Sarah Tyler |
| Judge Turpin | Matt Stainer |
| The Man with the Bell | Ben Fuiava |
| Ms Fogg | Victoria Waddington |
| THE EMSEMBLE | |
| Dave Ballard | Gill Birchall |
| Louis eBrown | Jo Campbell |
| Becky Channon | Hazel Channon |
| Rebecca George | Clarissa Giles |
| Geoff Greensmith | Alice Hudson |
| Paul Hudson | Jenny Kent |
| Gaby Lambert | Emily Lockyer |
| Spencer Mitchell | Des Muller |
| Dominique Norbrook | Hamish Norbrook |
| Dianne Norbrook | Kevin Quilty |
| Paul Sadler | Amie Shallcross |
| Amie Shallcross | Greg Shaw |
| Marion Stewart | Penny Stone |
| Susan Sworn | Victoria Waddington |