Thank you for coming to see us – Sweeney was a huge hit, thanks to your support – read a review below:
Described by Stephen Sondheim as a musical thriller, the show is set in the dark streets of Victorian London. It tells the story of Benjamin Barker, a barber whose life is ruined when he is deported on a trumped-up charge by a corrupt judge, who lusts after Barker’s wife and daughter.
Years later, Barker arrives back in London, calling himself Sweeney Todd. Obsessed by his need for revenge, he opens a barber’s shop above Mrs Lovett’s pie shop in Fleet Street. He enters a devilish plot with Mrs Lovett, murdering his customers and disposing of their bodies in her pies.
Sondheim’s recipe of anger, greed, revenge, love and humour combine to make this one of the masterpieces of 20th century musical theatre … a bloody good tale!
Sincere thanks to Aaron Weight for our rehearsal photos and video; and as always to Andy Abbott for the publicity photos! Andy also came along and took photos on a very special day for us, when our Patron, Clare Presland, came to give the company a fabulous masterclass.
If you are going to play a barber you have to know how to shave – see below for photos of our Todd, Marc Kerr, and rival barber Pirelli, Steve Murray, learning how to wield a cutthroat razor – thanks to Marnie Williams and the staff and students at the Academy of Hair and Beauty, West Suffolk College.
Music and Lyrics by STEPHEN SONDHEIM, Book by HUGH WHEELER; from an adaptation by CHRISTOPHER BOND, originally directed on Broadway by HAROLD PRINCE, orchestration by JONATHAN TUNICK
Originally produced on Broadway by Richard Barr, Charles Woodward, Robert Fryer, Mary Lea Johnson, Martin Richards in association with Dean and Judy Manos
This amateur production is presented by arrangement with Music Theatre International. All authorised performance materials are also supplied by MTI.
