Sweeney Todd is, in my opinion, up there with Stephen Sondheim’s greatest work and mounting this production is no walk in the park for an amateur production. It tells of ‘The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,’ who has returned to London after being sent away by Judge Turpin. Todd returns to find that his child, Johanna, is now a ward of the Judge and his wife is dead. After meeting Mrs Lovett, a pie maker, he establishes himself as a barber again and sets about to getting his grisly revenge on the Judge and all that assisted him.

The music in Sweeney Todd is complex and a challenge that Cygnet Players faced head on. Musical Director, Ashely Harvey has clearly worked hard with the cast to ensure that the harmonies were well drilled and the timing spot on. Performed by a choir of 19 and a cast of 28 they all sounded assured from the ensemble through to the leads.

Sweeney Todd relies heavily on having a strong principal cast and Cygnet Players did not drop the ball on this front. Tom Cane led as a brooding Sweeny Todd, he was not only able to captivate the audience in his more intense moments but also inject some brevity into appropriate moments. This helped ensure a more human side of Todd came across as well as ensure not every moment of the show descended into the pits of darkness. Amy Matthewson took on the role of Mrs Lovett with brilliant humour and great physicality ensuring the her body language did a huge amount of talking.

A highlight of the principal cast for me was Michael Stacey as Adolfo Pirelli. Pirelli is not only a notorious difficult sing but requires a larger than life character actor to really capture Pirelli’s energy and boy did Stacey succeed on all fronts. His number, ‘The Contest’ was one of my highlights of the show and he had the audience eating out of the pal of his hand. Johanna played by Anna Kendall and Anthony played by Christopher Palmer were well suited as the young lovers in the piece and sang beautifully together.

Sweeney Todd is always a difficult show to make you mark on or interpret differently as there have been so many excellent productions in theatrical history however director Tom Howard introduced a masked quintet whose menacing presence was felt throughout the production. Whilst I admired the concept and on the whole it was executed well there were times when this distracted from the main action, in particular in Epiphany where I wanted to focus on Sweeney but instead my attention was divided.

The lighting design by Ben Sassoon was also a triumph in this production. With the murky undertones of the show it can often be lit very dimly however Sassoon avoided falling into this trap and used back lighting as a pivotal piece of his lighting design and to great effect, additionally he was very clever in creating contrasting lighting within scenes for dramatic effect.

Cygnet Players has produced a very assured production of Sweeney Todd with their own creative flair enhanced by a very strong set of principals and clever lighting design.

Sweeney Todd is on until 22nd February at the London Oratory School. You can find out more and book tickets here.

If you like this review you might also like my reviews of Shrek, All Shook Up and Spring Awakening all by Cygnet Players.