Sweeney Todd Shock 'n' Roll

Set in the 1870’s this Victorian melodrama whilst in broad terms following the story of Sweeney Todd with which we are all familiar contains many suitably silly elements. Elements most appealingly provided by this talented young cast demonstrating their infectious enthusiasm and ability to entertain an audience successfully.

The characters emerged after an entry to the stage from both sides of the auditorium. Jack Gandy, a towering strong suitably intimidating ‘Sweeny Todd’ made his mark as the demon barber. ‘Mrs Wilhelmina Lovett’ his pie making accomplice performed capably by Karolina Pioro in song, dance and comedy. Ciara Heffernan produced highly accomplished characterisation of “only little” ‘Tobias Sweetheart’ 

Shock ‘n’Roll relies on effective characterisation and humour, more than blood and gore. The death though in ‘Sweeney’s’ chair of ‘Alonzo’ admirably played by Emily Jeffrey did contain a precisely timed spurt of blood from the blade. This magician character complete in top hat and tails and her able assistant ‘Foozle’ played by Abigail Watkins who was subsequently at the centre of several amusing ‘planted’ audience participation sketches.

‘Billy’ and ‘Tommy’ respectively played by Kieran Blunt and George Wing engaged the audience with great humour including some cleverly conceived stagecraft. Delivery of dialogue by all the principals was based on clear diction and intonation. None more so than by Oli Cowlinshaw as ‘Angelo’ ,with his remarkably impressive and totally believable Italian accent and dressed immaculately in a sartorial waistcoat. A voice of the canine variety in the role of ‘Orlando’ was extraordinarily well portrayed by Alex Reilly scrambling around the stage on all fours in brown dog-like costume, complete with tail and face paint.  

This well-cast principal line up were ably supported by a strong chorus, some making their individual stage debut , especially in the song ‘Evil’, and in the gin house run by ‘Madame Beaujolais Pickle’ (Katy Eckley). and the first appearance of a serenely played ‘Queen Victoria’ (Elizabeth Smith), who in the final scene commuted  ‘Sweeney’s’  death sentence to one of life imprisonment  in the madhouse of Peckham

Technically the production met the challenges of moving large pieces of an in-house designed and built set and a number of props efficiently albeit prompting a couple of delayed changes. Well managed stage effects however compensated for that. One example being Mrs Lovett's automated pie-making machine Pastriacci Mark 3 with instructions to plug it in!!

Musically a well-balanced orchestra did justice to a score that contained a few catchy tunes, although some of the vocals were not the most tuneful. However by embracing lively stage awareness and inspired choreography including imaginatively performed fight scenes the entire company had pace and energy that was very appealing indeed.  This included the  riot in the madhouse at Peckham , the dwarf squad waving truncheons brought in to apprehend ‘Sweeney’ dashing in a police chase involving most of the cast running a circuit of the auditorium.  These were just some of many opportunities that were lapped up by all in this delightful evening of at times slapstick and live theatre. 

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