As tasty a feast as Mrs Lovett's pies

Published at 15:40, Wednesday, 18 November 2009

Keri Farish with her son Jed and her mum Janet Whitehead

SWEENEY TODD REVIEW, CARNEGIE THEATRE, WORKINGTON - by John Connell

I HAVE a confession to make: as a general rule I do not like musicals.

The way characters break spontaneously into song after a dialogue scene has always struck me as artificial and, well, a bit corny.

But Stephen Sondheim’s tragi-comic Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, showing this week in Workington’s Carnegie Theatre, is a different breed.

It is closer to the anguished cries from the gutter translated into music than it is to the harmonious melodies of, say, The Wizard of Oz or The Sound of Music.

The songs interplay and violently clash with one another, at times soft and lyrical, at times loud and strident.

Sweeney Todd has an operatic quality which is why it seems appropriate that Workington Amateur Operatic Society has taken on an ambitious production like this.

The musical, directed by Ed McGee and Stephen Hunter-Brown, follows the fortunes of the eponymous anti-hero Sweeney Todd (Tex Houghton), a vengeful barber who lures his unsuspecting victims to their death on the pretext of giving them a “very close shave”.

His partner in crime is the widow Mrs Lovett, (Keri Farish) who makes his victims into tasty pies.

Tex Houghton exuded menace as the brooding barber determined to take revenge upon the tyrannical Judge Turpin who ravished Todd’s former wife, stole his infant daughter and had him shipped off to an Australian penal colony on trumped up charges.

Special mention has to go to Norman Brayton, who has received a NODA award for 50 years to the society and also delivered the finest performance of the night.

The highlight was his rendition of the song Joanna when Turpin agonises over the guilty lust he feels for his ward (Louise Robinson).

Keri Farish was excellent as Mrs Lovett, while Michael Hoggarth, who played Beadle Bramford, has a fine singing voice.

The set design whereby Todd’s victims are dumped into a rubbish chute worked well.

Perhaps it is fair to say that the production is unsuitable for the squeamish or for young children. It is also extremely loud.

My main criticism is there was no enough fake blood but the society is to be congratulated on serving up a feast every bit as tasty and visceral as Mrs Lovett’s pies.

Incidentally, I noticed with some amusement that Haighs the butchers on Pow Street had placed an advert in the programme! Surely a coincidence.