← MickeyJoTheatre
MickeyJoTheatre
Sweeney Todd starring Ramin Karimloo, Meow Meow (Birmingham Rep) - ★★★ REVIEW
00:31:37
Loading summary
Transcript26 lines
- [00:00]
Instacart Ad Voice
Instacart makes grocery shopping easier, and just because you're not doing the shopping yourself doesn't mean you don't care how it's done. With Instacart Shopper notes, you can get particular about what you want right in the app. Like rotisserie chicken that's extra crispy steak with marbling the Romans would have loved, and lettuce you'd actually pick yourself. Just leave a note for your shopper so that they can get it right for you without having to ask. That way you can get groceries just how you like. Download the Instacart app and shop today
- [00:30]
Mickey Jo
A Better Help ad matching with my
- [00:32]
BetterHelp Testimonial Speaker 1
therapist was very quick and easy. I just filled out a couple of questions. Before you know it, I was matched with a therapist.
- [00:37]
BetterHelp Testimonial Speaker 2
I just felt like a weight just was lifted off of my shoulders and I felt like it was a good match from the first time we talked. BetterHelp is there to meet people at their needs, giving them a space to feel safe.
- [00:48]
BetterHelp Ad Voice
There is a stigma about therapy, but with BetterHelp I meet people where they are. Wherever you are. That's where BetterHelp begins. Visit betterhelp.comrandompodcast to get started.
- [01:00]
Oregon Lottery Ad Voice
Oregon Parks make an Oregon Summer, but what makes an Oregon park? Well, Oregon Lottery Gameplay helps no matter the game. Megabucks, video lottery or keno funds from lottery games help support parks projects across the state, ensuring they stay safe, accessible and open for all. In fact, Discover State Park Scratches are in stores now. It's the perfect way to put a little bit of Oregon's parks in your pocket. The Oregon Lottery Together we do good things. Must be 18 or older to play Lottery games are based on chance and should be played for entertainment only.
- [01:33]
Mickey Jo
Theatre fans, get ready to attend the Tale well, I'm not doing the show for you. Get ready to attend the review of Sweeney Todd, currently being revived regionally in the UK at the Birmingham Rep. The production, which stars Ramin Karimlou of the West End and Broadway stage as well as international cabaret star Meow Meow, opened last night and I'm about to tell you all about it. Oh my God. Hey, welcome back to my theatre themed YouTube channel. Or hello to those of you listening to this review on podcast platforms. My name is Mickey Jo and I am obsessed with all things theatre as a professional theatre critic and a content creator here on social media. And today we are going to be talking about the newly opened regional UK revival of Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler's Sweeney Todd playing at the Birmingham Rep. And ahead of everything I have to say about this production. I am beyond grateful that there are Sondheim scored musicals being produced read regionally in the uk. I think it's really exciting to get to see new interpretations of some of these, the best musicals ever written to my mind. And generally speaking, there is no theatrical experience I anticipate more than going to see a revival of a Sondheim scored musical, even if I have a million and one things to say about it afterwards. Something about these shows turns me into a pushy dance mom, like rooting for them from the side of the stage but telling them every mistake that they made afterwards. And alongside that I love a big creative swing. And this is a really interesting revival of the show because because in the face of its usual scale and grandeur, this is actually in certain ways a stripped back production with a reduced cast and orchestra, with a company in which the principal actors go back into the ensemble when they aren't doing their own scenes. That in addition to the other creative choices made with this production, the material as well as of course the performances is going to be the focus of today's full review. I'm going to let you know exactly what I thought of this show and if you have had the chance to see this production, please let me know what you thought of it in the comments down below. Meanwhile, if you enjoyed enjoy listening to my review, you can find so many more of them. Other reviews of other productions of Sweeney Todd that I've seen, including the most recent Broadway revival, as well as my thoughts on other Sondheim revivals. Wherever you are seeing my face or hearing my voice, there are also more to look forward to on the horizon. Later this year there is going to be a revival of A Little Night Music at the Royal Exchange in Manchester. I'm looking forward to reviewing that one. If you don't want to miss any of these, make sure to subscribe here on YouTube or follow me on podcast platforms. For now though, it is time for me to swing my critical pen wide. Not that I've actually written anything down on this occasion and tell you what I thought of Birmingham Rep's Sweeney Todd. Now, humour me. If to begin with, I'd like to talk a little bit about the material because the thing is, Sweeney Todd is such an extraordinarily well written show. I think it's probably regarded by many as the strongest, like the objectively strongest musical that Stephen Sondheim may ever have written. It may in fact be his masterpiece. And amidst the ongoing conversation we're having about Original musicals being inherently superior, you may be surprised to learn that this is essentially an adaptation of a 1970 play written by Christopher Bond, which itself is relating the penny dreadful story of the character of Sweeney Todd and of course, his nefarious accomplice, Mrs. Lovett. The story here being that Sweeney Todd is returning to his premises after years as a convict in Australia, having been transported there on a falsified charge because of the villainous and duplicitous Judge Turpin, who wanted to secure Sweeney's beautiful wife for himself. Back when Sweeney was not called Sweeney Todd, when he was known as Benjamin Barker, a naive young man whose wife and daughter Joanna were ultimately snatched from him. When he returns to his former dwellings, Mrs. Lovett, his downstairs neighbour who runs the pie shop, a struggling pie shop which in her own words, produces the worst pies in lo, explains all of this to him. She returns to him the chased silver handled razors that she has kept in her possession all of these years, and she dissuades him from recklessly pursuing immediate revenge, instead suggesting that he recommence his profession as a barber, he reopened his tonsorial parlor and that he subsequently enticed the villainous Judge Turpin, as well as his associate Beedle Bamford, into the parlor, whereupon he can kill them. It's only when an unexpected additional murder takes place as a result of recognition from Sweeney's past, that the two of them hatch a scheme together in which Sweeney will murder occupants of his barber's chair, after which Mrs. Lovett, who could evidently use a boost to her business, will turn them into pies. This being the notion of the Sweeney Todd legend, it's furnished here with a little more agenda, with romantic subplot and tragic backstory. And since it was first produced on Broadway, there have been many productions of Sweeney Todd. The vast majority of them don't tend to differ too from its original staging, from its original tone and character. But there have been a few notable exceptions to this. There was an actor musician revival in the West End and on Broadway, directed by John Doyle in a style that he was pioneering at the time Mrs. Lovett played a tuba. There was also an intimate immersive revival staged in an actual pie shop. This also took place on both sides of the Atlantic. And so this isn't the first time with this production that the whole thing has been pared back a little. This also isn't the example of the time period during which the show is traditionally set being changed for a production, but more on that in just A moment. What I want to say about this material, and, you know, I think it's a misnomer when we characterize these so often as Sondheim musicals, is that in addition to his genius score, it has a really tremendous book. I would call this one of the great marriages of score and book and this collaboration between Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler. And you need only look at the moment after Sweeney sings Epiphany and resigns himself to this life of bloodlust and vengeance in which he will never again know happiness, he sings this dramatic final admission, which is utterly pierced and deflated by the subsequent line from Mrs. Lovett, who waits for a beat, the audience applauds, perhaps, and she simply says, well, that's all very well, dear, leading us into A Little Priest, which is one of the most triumphant musical theatre songs perhaps ever written. This contrast between those two juxtaposed numbers is emblematic of the real gift of this musical, which is the collision of these two characters and these two personalities. Sweeney Todd, with his brooding menace, and Mrs. Lovett, who is boisterous and eccentric and broadly theatrical. It's from these two distinct personalities and dramatic tones, really, that the show inherits its own shifting nature, which renders it capable of delivering a tragedy and darkness and intensity alongside this broad. Without Sweeney, the whole thing might be a farce. Without Mrs. Lovett, the whole thing would be an opera. It's the combination of the two of them that makes it delicious musical theater. And Sondheim's score, stylistically, is pursuant to that. Everything he did was so intentional, was so dictated by the stories that he was telling and by their character. And so Mrs. Lovett has this broader musical theater sound. At one point she even spoofs Tomorrow from Annie. There's a whole backstory to that, but there's also nods to a kind of music hall sound in her material. And Sweeney, meanwhile, is left to his own devices, utterly operatic. Worth saying as well, because they're less talked about, I think. The score for Sweeney Todd also contains some of Sondheim's most romantic melodies. When we think about Joanna, when we think about Not While I'm around, which is among my favourites, just the sweetness of that, that can turn so subtly into something much more insidious very quickly, with a little melodic inversion and a little change in tonality, as well as the perhaps underappreciated Green Finch and Linnet Bird, which admittedly, is not the most impactful song to the plot. However, it does contain one of my favourite lyrics. Joanna trapped unhappily in the home of Judge Turpin, who has retained her as his ward, is singing about the birds and the larks and their song. And she's singing, teach me how to sing. She sings, Larks never do, you know, when they're captive. Teach me to be more adaptive. It's a classic, gorgeous little Sondheim rhyme. For his greatest wit, though, we need to take a look at a little priest. And for this to be the act break, for this to be the culmination of, you know, the legend of Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett, this being the moment when they decide that this is what they're going to do. We'll serve anyone, and to anyone, the genius of that. It's such a brilliant choice. It's such a fantastic way of theatricalizing this story. And the lyric, this always gets a big laugh. So this is probably overly talked about, but the lyric, shepherd's pie peppered with actual shepherd on top. And to not lead with that, to start with so many references, to have Lovett be pitching Sweeney this idea by saying, it's priest. Have a little priest here' finest in the shop. And to delay objectively, your very best and funniest rhyme until that late in the song. I mean, the moment when you come up with shepherd's pied peppered with actual shepherd on top, that's A, you give yourself the rest of the day off because nothing else is going to get better. And B, if you weren't already writing a Sweeney Todd musical, that I think is reason enough to start writing the musical. You come up with that rhyme, you think, well, this now needs a show to go around it because it's so clever, it's so funny, and it's very easy. It's too easy to look back at this show and to look at it structurally. And, yeah, that's where a little priest happens. And not think about what it took to conceive of this number. It's. It's such a masterstroke worth pointing out as well. Sweeney Todd, I think, is also one of the great successes in musical theater of Greek chorus narration. It's done quite a lot, but rarely this. Well, all of this to say I seldom see a production of Sweeney Todd that I don't find some way to enjoy because of the inherent strength of the material. And yet the reason why I'm such a stickler for Sondheim scored shows is because there is such richness, there is such creative possibility, there is such humanity in these stories, in this material, that I am fascinated by what it is you're going to do with all of that. Which brings us to a conversation about this production at the Birmingham Rep.
- [12:00]
BetterHelp Ad Voice
A
- [12:00]
BetterHelp Testimonial Speaker 1
Better Help ad matching with my therapist was very quick and easy. I just filled out a couple of questions. Before you know it, I was matched with a therapist.
- [12:07]
BetterHelp Testimonial Speaker 2
I just felt like a weight just was lifted off of my shoulders and I felt like it was a good match from the first time we talked about betterhelp is there to meet people at their needs, giving them a space to feel safe.
- [12:18]
BetterHelp Ad Voice
There is a stigma about therapy, but with BetterHelp, I meet people where they are. Wherever you are, that's where BetterHelp begins. Visit betterhelp.comrandompodcast to get started.
- [12:30]
Instacart Ad Voice
Instacart makes grocery shopping easier, and just because you're not doing the shopping yourself doesn't mean you don't care how it's done. With Instacart Shopper notes, you can get particular about what you want right in the app. Like rotisserie chicken that's extra crispy steak with marbling the Romans would have loved, and lettuce you'd actually pick yourself. Just leave a note for your shopper so that they can get it right for you without having to ask. That way you can get groceries just how you like. Download the Instacart app and shop today.
- [13:08]
Mickey Jo
So this revival has been directed by the Rep's artistic director, Joe Murphy, and one of the first things I should tell you about it is that it has been recontextualized. It has been displaced from its usual mid 19th century London setting to around 100 years prior to that, a setting in the Georgian period, which for the most part doesn't really modify all that much about the show and its themes and its intentions. It also isn't the first time that this has happened. The most recent major West End revival starring Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton, which originated down in chichester, was definitely 20th century set. There was, I think, in Leeds. It might have been a regional revival more than a decade ago that was set in Britain in the 1970s. So this in many ways represents less of a drastic change. And for the most part it just sort of shifts the aesthetics of the production and the costuming with a lot of white stockings and powdered wigs and buckled shoes, Sweeney ending up in a very nice red double breasted waistcoat and Mrs. Lovett in bright yellows. The use of wigs in this production is actually one of the most interesting details emerging from this time shift because you have Mrs. Lovett, who at one point removes the black wig that she's been wearing for the duration of the show while she is alone in the bakehouse. It's very Dustin Hoffman from the end of Hook, this massive black, curly thing coming from off of her head, leaving a short, very fair hair. The show and its material has a huge thing about hair. Anyway, interestingly, this makes her look just a little bit like the beggar woman, and it very much plays into all of the things that she has been saying about Mrs. Lovett as she accuses her of putting on airs. And the other interesting wig example that we see, Judge Turpin, after this short scene, when we see him enacting a brutal sentencing at court, he takes off his judicial wig and we see his own natural hair before he puts on a different wig for his everyday life. And so there is a little commentary on class happening here. The design of this production is by Ellen Steele, and there are two sets of steps on either side of this sort of stone valley, with a staging platform centrally that can rise from a flat stage to reveal Mrs. Lovett's pie shop in the foreground and Sweeney's tonsorial parlour and chair up above. And at the back of the stage, reigning over all of that is an enormous statue of a winged angel holding the sword, holding the scales representing justice, blind with a bandage over her eyes. And not to once again be the person who counted the dogs in the outdoor production of 101 Dalmatians, but I could have sworn that she had six fingers on one of her hands anyway, prior to all of this. The show curtain features the Gustave de Ray painting of Satan falling to earth, inspired by Milton's Paradise Lost, readying us, I think, for big philosophical conversations about morality and redemption and justice. I don't know whether this production truly arrives at those conversations, and I don't know to what extent the production, as it's been conceived with this scale of company and orchestra, necessarily befits a set of this scale and grandeur. It's one thing to do a stripped back Sweeney Todd, but to do it on such a large and looming stage with an enormous statue presiding over the whole thing doesn't necessarily make sense. It just feels a little asynchronous. And to put some numbers to this, the orchestra is comprised of seven and the cast of 11, the entire company. And it's interesting to take a show which previously has been brought about with such scale and to rework it in a smaller way. And there is a trade off happening here. And there's also something to be gained. And the question is what you can gain in terms of intimacy. Usually this would happen in a smaller venue, by necessity, of somewhere like the Watermill. We're doing Sweeney Todd. Then a smaller, more intimate production, more immediate is what you would get. I don't know that it necessarily comes across in this particular venue. Then you have the whole matter of the chorus, who we meet at the beginning singing the introductory ballad of Sweeney Todd subsequently becoming principal characters. And the staging of these chorus narration moments feels a little pedestrian to me. When they walk on in a line and they just stand there in a line, they're wearing all white, but their costumes from the ground up have a gradient of darkness and dirt, as does the set. Like the sort of creeping sickness of sin that is consuming society, perhaps. And were they to visibly, like, put on the wig and, like, put on the coat, and now I am becoming this person from the chorus, which we have been, then perhaps it would have felt a little more justified to me. As it stands, they don't really offer much commentary on that. We just see David Bedella, who has clearly just been the judge now as a patron in the pie shop, when they're singing God, that's Good. There's a moment when Toby exits from being Toby and then arrives upstairs in Sweeney's parlor and is one of this parade of people who get their throats slit, while he, somewhat comically, is singing a very romantic song and barely paying attention to these lives that he is ending. And it isn't necessarily clear that that's not meant to be Tobias. At which point, point we have a storytelling problem. And in general, I'm sorry to say, I didn't necessarily feel this direction had much of a perspective on the material or much of a sense of what it wanted to say with it. It felt like another Sweeney Todd with a brilliantly well brought together cast of performers. But for all of these adaptive choices, it wasn't clear what they amounted to. The staging, perhaps a little bit predictable. I think the most striking visual moments came from some really great use of lighting. This designed by Rory Beaton. I particularly enjoyed the way it created silhouettes in the second act when we ventured to Fogg's Asylum. Although there was one lighting moment that didn't happen and I needed something. I needed some kind of shift in recognition of the momentum of this moment. This is something of a spoiler. If you don't know Sweeney Todd, I would caution you to just skip a little bit ahead. This is towards the end of the second act, the judge is finally returning. Sweeney has no time. The beggar woman is in the wrong place at the wrong time, struggling to take a hint. And unfortunately, he has to murder her just to get her out of the way. Only, and stay with me here, the way that they do the in chair murders in this production of Sweeney Todd, as illustrated by this lovely little gesture here, is they have devices for releasing the blood, which are in the bibs that he puts over people. He takes this sheet, he ties it around their neck. The blood is released down over this white. It's a great sort of trickling blood, blurred visual. It's all very horrifying. And then the chair turns, a lever pulls and they are released and they slide off. It all looks great. Problem is, he doesn't have time to put a bib on her because he's not going through the pretense of shaving the beggar woman. He's just slitting her throat. And so the razor moves across her neck, but we don't see blood. All of this would be curtailed if they were to drench the whole thing in red lighting. Sunset Boulevard, Act 2 style. Because the music really swells at that point. It tells you this is a huge deal, that he's just done this. It's a little out of character for him based on his moral principles. But also, we're going to come to find out why that moment mattered so much, how fateful it was. And we need something to tell us that. And if we drenched it in red lighting, we wouldn't be able to see that there wasn't any blood. Weirdly enough, later. And this is even more of a spoiler. Keep skipping. When Sweeney holds up his neck and allows Tobias to end his life. Life, that is a prop raiser. That is blood releasing. So I don't know if the other one was also meant to be and something went wrong or they can't change it in time. You know, health and safety on stage when you're dealing with razors and necks, absolutely has to come first. But they clearly have the capacity to move this thing across someone's neck and have it release a trail of blood. Meanwhile, I had a few issues with space and the rules that they were trying to convey about how this space worked. And evidently enough, the chute leading from the chair didn't functionally actually end up in the bakehouse, so they had to cheat it on a couple of occasions. This wasn't necessarily helped by the fact that at one point we see Lovett dragging in a bunch of bloody miscellanea from the side of the stage, rather than producing it from the shoot when they first test it. And Sweeney puts a pile of books on his chair, and Lovett then pulls a pile of books out of the chute. That's fine. But weirdly, she throws them in the fire. And I tested it fine. You don't actually need to complete this process. Why are we burning books? We don't need to burn the books. How far are we following this through? Are they going to be turned into pies? Is that the vegetarian option? Such questions entered my mind on a similar note during God, that's good. There's a great moment lyrically, when Mrs. Lovett is holding up a sign to say they're sold out. And then she sees one of the patrons of the pie shop wander upstairs to go and have a shave. And she says, bless my arms, pies, fresh supplies. However, moments before this, she has taken a tray of pies out of the oven and there's another one still in there. We still see about another dozen pies, so you can't do sold out. And then, bless my eyes, fresh supplies. If there's a dozen pies waiting to be served. I understand that I'm a pedant, but these things matter to me, and it's very easy to fix. The transit between those two spaces can also be a little unusual because we have this set of stairs, and yet just as often, people enter into the tonsorial parlor on that upper level from the side of the stage. Lovett goes off to go and find Toby in some unnamed location at one point, and then comes back on after a little dead air. She also locks him in the bakehouse, the claustrophobia of which isn't really felt because he's just over there on one side of the stage and she's here on the other. I will say, though, some of my favorite direction moments were actually in the prop work. There was a lot of great prop work, whether it was Anthony buying this bird for Joanna and then beetle bam 3 crushing the bird to give him a very clear message. And Anthony at the climax of the song, Joanna then breaking the birdcage apart in his determination and romantic frustrations. Meow. Meow. As Mrs. Lovett has a very endearing early moment singing the Worst Pies in London, when she is making pastry and trying to roll it out, and she's using her elbow and her shoulder and then she's sitting on it and she's bouncing up and down on the counter. That's very funny. We also have Pirelli and Sweeney Todd getting ready to compete feet in a shaving competition, sharpening their razors on these tools attached to their belts. You have a trunk with a body thrown into it and an arm able to protrude out of the top that we can then see sort of juddering and coming back to life. There's bloody remains in a bucket, there's little blood trickling out from a meat grinder. Lots of great prop work, perhaps even stronger than the character work, which we'll talk about in just a moment. The moment But I would say that the feel of this production is one that finds more readily the broad comedy moments and opts for a joke when it can. I don't know that we necessarily access the full weight and gravity of the show's darkness and intensity and menace. We don't quite feel that full bleak embrace. And yet it's still Sweeney Todd. If I didn't leave the theater saying, God, that's good, I left saying God that's good. If enough. Which brings us to a conversation about the
- [24:25]
BetterHelp Ad Voice
A Better Help ad matching with
- [24:27]
BetterHelp Testimonial Speaker 1
my therapist was very quick and easy. I just filled out a couple of questions. Before you know it, I was matched with a therapist.
- [24:32]
BetterHelp Testimonial Speaker 2
I just felt like a weight just was lifted off of my shoulders and I felt like it was a good match from the first time we talked. Better help is there to meet people at their needs, giving them a space to feel safe.
- [24:43]
BetterHelp Ad Voice
There is a stigma about therapy, but with Better BetterHelp I meet people where they are. Wherever you are, that's where BetterHelp begins. Visit betterhelp.comrandompodcast to get started.
- [24:56]
Instacart Ad Voice
Instacart makes grocery shopping easier. And just because you're not doing the shopping yourself doesn't mean you don't care how it's done. With Instacart Shopper notes, you can get particular about what you want right in the app. Like rotisserie chicken that's extra crispy steak with marbling the Romans would have loved, and lettuce you'd actually pick yourself. Just leave a note for your shopper so that they can get it right for you without having to ask. That way you can get groceries just how you like. Download the Instacart app and shop Today
- [25:28]
Mickey Jo
Performances. Now this is a big part of why this announced production was so exciting, because this is really a list casting international stars. Ramin Karimlu, Meow Meow, David Bedella as well, and a very talented company around them. Each gave very strong performances in what I would characterize as utterly distinct productions of Sweeney Todd. It was as though every member of this company is doing a slightly differently directed version of this show. They just happen to be doing it at the same time in the same place. There was a lack of cohesion tonally between everything that was going on, and I think that's because this production and its identity just isn't all the way realized. There are strong creative ideas here, but not enough to have everyone singing from the same hymn sheet. I will also say, not wishing to attribute this to any one individual, however long you think you need to rehearse Sweeney Todd, add a week. Add a week. Because it's really difficult to navigate as a score. We talk about Sondheim's being hard, this is harder. And it was very impressive, actually, that we came on a couple of occasions so close to derailment from the lyric, but managed to make it work. A couple of things got switched around. A couple of things things got reinterpreted, but the train stayed on the tracks. And if you haven't ever listened, go and check out recordings from the very first Broadway preview of Sweeney Todd, whereupon you will discover why I am willing to grant performers grace when it comes to tackling these lyrics. Let's talk about Ramin as Sweeney, and this is a piece of casting that I hadn't really conceived of. The Jean Valjean to Sweeney Todd pipeline is not something that we see often explored, not as often as the Javert to Sweeney pipeline. But between that and his background playing the Phantom of the Opera so frequently, I think there are a lot of tools ready in his arsenal to tackle this role vocally. It was very of his usual style, which I think worked very well for this. He's not a bass baritone, but he's very capable in the lower range of the score with a real growling passion to his delivery. And what that meant was when he ascended into the few higher moments of Sweeney's material, which tend to be coupled with to moments of romantic longing and sorrow, it lifted with this quality of getting to glimpse the romantic man that he was before he was consumed by this darkness and this despair. A great example of this is during Epiphany, when he soars up through and My Lucy Lies in Ashes, which sounded wonderful sung by Romine. His is an interesting take on the character, actually, because he is, like some we've seen recently, a romantic, passionate Sweeney Todd. Not all the way consumed by this demonic focus. There wasn't really a sense of mental retreat. His was a very lucid Sweeney who simply had an extraordinary resolve and determination. Now, I'm not going to wade into discourse around the accents here because historically, with productions of Sweeney Todd, they've kind of been all over the place. So many Sweeneys have just never really tried. If you look at the major Broadway run, Sons of Sweeney Todd, those men aren't necessarily attempting English accents. And there's some flexibility to be found in the fact that he spent, what is it, a decade and a half in Australia and he is now this new man who is meant to be unrecognizable enough. Meanwhile, Meow Meow, who is a campy delight as Mrs. Lovett, sounded as cockney as you are willing to allow yourself to believe that she is, while also consistently sounding Australian. And I didn't really have any kind of a problem with it because the personality loomed large enough.
- [28:59]
BetterHelp Ad Voice
Enough.
- [29:00]
Mickey Jo
There are a couple of vowels that you could tinker with. It's times is hard versus times is ad. Like that's going to take us to a very Aussie place. Hers did on occasion, in its very welcome eccentricity and broad comedy, feel a little like a drag performance of Mrs. Lovett. I mean, that only to be an extraordinary compliment. And it was passively familiar of Kathleen Day Knight and Dame Edna, like some sort of a manic 18th century hybrid between the two. Now, vocally, Meow Meow's delivery was interesting. There's this very horse quality to her voice, which I think worked very well for Love It. I don't need it to sound like a clean, pristine sort of bel canto singing voice. There was some slightly inelegant vocal maneuvering happening during the Worst Pies in London. Only really in that song, she seemed to be able to sing everything else with considerably more ease. But it's the journey across octaves in that meet what it is. It stretches a lot and it moves between those registers very quickly. The only other time when that is as pronounced is towards the very end. And again, spoilers here. The most important Mrs. Lovett line, I think of the entire show when Sweeney is confronting her about lies that she has told him and she's saying, no, no, not lied at all. No, I never lied. Lied. And the line is, yes, I lied. Cause I love you. And we just didn't get that first. I love you. I just wanted to be screamed out. We lost it a little bit. And at that point it is like, if you can't sing it loud enough, then just scream the thing. Otherwise I would say hers is probably the star turn of the show because of the extent to which she found every rich note of this character. Her selfishness and her manipulation. Her maternal inclination, inclinations when she meets Tobias, her sort of Lady Macbeth esque regret when he starts to sense what in the Jack the Ripper meets Greggs is going on. As well as her perhaps insecurity fueled lust towards Sweeney. Her performance of by the Sea is a hoot in the second act. It's really wonderful. And the performances are largely as well characterized throughout the supporting cast. I thought Jo Stevenson as Joanna may have come across a little too adamant in the beginning, a little too bold in her instant resentment. There was something of a contemporary feel to it, to it as if she didn't have any reason to fear reproach from Judge Turpin, who's ultimately gonna, you know, lock her in an asylum for even looking at a sailor. That sailor is Anthony, played by Shem Amari James, a rising star I've had my eye on for a while. Desperately romantic in this role. I'm ready for him to go into Phantom, to go into Les Mis. He can absolutely do that kind of material. I also enjoyed Jack Gibson as an earnest, faithful and northern accented Toby, one whose gleeful reaction to learning how to make the pies in the bakehouse really readies us for for stomach dropping heartbreak. Once again, spoiler alert. Florence Andrews finds much of the comedy and the sorrow in the Beggar Woman. I do think that we need slightly more justification at the beginning for Sweeney not instantly recognizing her upon his return. You know, he's just got back to the country from which he was removed and lost his wife and child. You dare say some familiarity of her face would be playing on his mind in this exact moment. And there needs to be like more hair in the face, face or cloth or like this going on or something. But you know, it can't just be that her hair is covered like. I know he sings about shades of blonde and they're all obsessed with the yellow hair thing. God help a brunette in this society, but I dare say there ought to be more that you recognize about your wife. Silas Wyatt Bark executed a brilliant comedic switch as Adolfo Pirelli and Julius Da Silva utter pomposity as Beedle Bamford, which made him very enjoyable, finally bringing just as much status to the stage as anyone else. David Videla as Judge Turpin. David has played Sweeney Todd in a previous production of the show and brought all of that requisite authority to this menacing, villainous role. What I like about his Judge Turpin is the sort of delusion, this utter sense of self importance, such that he is baffled by Joanna's disinterest and he is so ready to be convinced by Sweeney at the end and to be manipulated by the suggestion that Joanna is, in that moment coming up the stairs and preparing to apologize to him and get ready for a life of romantic happiness together. There were some interesting choices made with his solo song Joanna Mea Culpa, which is excised sometimes, and per the song, he is simultaneously punishing and indulging himself for these less than pure thoughts about his ward. Only in this production he had no instrument of flagellation. He's sort of doing this while he's holding a rosary, but it is for the most part simply masturbatory, which ultimately, beyond its climax, was played off with a sort of comic embarrassment. And if we're going to go all the way to realize that and depict that as, you know, what he's doing in this number, then I don't know. I think we have to own it a little bit more. David's, it's worth saying, is also the first voice that we hear in this production, with the principal cast also creating the show's chorus. And he is that rare, enduring, real basso profundo vocalist who can give you that tremendous depth that we need in the lower register, which I hear not nearly enough of these days. Those, then, have been my thoughts about Sweeney Todd at the Birmingham Rep. Go and see this production, especially if you have never seen Sweeney Todd before. This is, I think, as good as any other way to encounter this material for the very first time. It is, for the most part, a pretty traditional version of the show, though somewhat slimline. The material shines enduringly, as do its performances. Let me know if you have already had the chance to see this at the Birmingham Rep and share all of your thoughts and feelings down below. I would love to know what you think. In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed listening to my thoughts. Stay tuned for many more reviews coming from me. Very sure you're subscribed here on YouTube or following me on podcast platforms. And as always, I hope that everyone is staying safe and that you have a Stagey Day. For 10 more seconds. I'm Mickey Jo Theater. Oh my God. Hey, thanks for watching. Have a stagey day.
- [35:18]
BetterHelp Ad Voice
Subscribe
- [35:21]
Fin AI Customer Service Ad Voice
AI is transforming customer service. It's real and it works. And with fin, we've built the number one AI agent for customer service service. We're seeing lots of cases where it's solving up to 90% of real queries for real businesses. This includes the real world complex stuff like issuing a refund or canceling an order. And we also see it when FIN goes up against competitors. It's top of all the performance benchmarks, top of the G2 leaderboard and if you're not happy we'll refund you up to a million dollars which I think says it all. Check it out for yourself at fin
- [35:51]
Instacart Ad Voice
AI could AI help you do more of what you love? Workday is the AI platform for HR and finance that actually knows your business. We you handle the have to dos so you can focus on the can't wait to do's. It's a new work day.
- [36:08]
McDonald's Ad Voice
All new drinks are now at McDonald's with refreshers like the Strawberry Watermelon Refresher and the Mango Pineapple Refresher with Popping Boba to crafted sodas like the Sprite Berry Blast with berry flavors and cold foam. Who knew ice cold drink drinks could be so fire six? All new drinks are here now at McDonald's.
- [36:34]
Fin AI Customer Service Ad Voice
Refreshers contain caffeine.