Sweeney Todd – His Life, Times and Execution
Finger in the Pie
The Lowry, 18 November 2010
This is a gothic tabloid retelling of the tale of England’s most notorious serial killer.
It is dark, lewd, vulgar and ever so slightly visceral. If Thomas Lovell Beddoes, Jack Trevor Story and Ronald Firbank had got together they might well have come up with something like this.
A certain Mrs. (or Miss) Lovitt was the outstanding turn, she being all insatiable and bawdy and earthy, but this lady was only one of a host of grotesqueries. There were a couple of fatally wounded duellists too, each one determined to have the last… word.
The shadow-play and puppetry added to the variety of the show, but mainly it was the outrageous acting that held it all together. We got lashings of mock-fighting, the odd dollop of mock-sex and not a little blood and gore.
Sweeney Todd – His Life, Times and Execution is terrific, all-round entertainment and as English as, as… well, murder itself. And you can’t beat a good, full-blooded English murder, as George Orwell might once have said.
Sweeney Todd – His Life, Times and Execution is at The Lowry until 20 November. Details here.
And some other UK dates are here.
