Sweeney Todd

For the past five months, I feel like I’ve been married to Mrs Lovett (Clare), who was cast in the role of Stephen Sondheim’s “Sweeney Todd”, performed by Oxford Operatic Society at the Oxford Playhouse all this week. Directed by our good friend, Edward Blagrove, the show tells a tale of a Demon Barber “Sweeney Todd” and his partner in crime, “Mrs Lovett” who runs the pie shop below the barbers. Todd slits his customers throats with a straight razor, before sending them to Mrs Lovett’s shop, where the bodies are chopped up and baked into her meat pies.

Sunday evening saw the dress rehearsal, an opportunity to take photos of the production before it’s shown to an audience. The theatre had been filled with dry ice, creating a very surreal and spooky atmosphere. As the lights went down and curtain came up, we were presented with a scene of Fleet Street – Mrs Lovett’s Pie Shop and Todd’s barber shop above. A superb set, which really set the mood for the entire performance. The cast featured Alex Williams playing Todd, Clare as Mrs Lovett, Guy Grimsley playing the orphan boy “Toby” and Hannah Grainger Clemson as the “Beggar Woman”, who did a fantastic performance of a crazy old lady (almost too good, Hannah!).

On a personal note, I want to say how proud I am of Clare. She has worked incredibly hard for this performance – her show script has been glued to her hip for the past five months and has been with us on journeys to Portugal, Greece, Bath and York. She’s been belting out show numbers in the shower every morning – I must admit to singing along myself; though I have a tendency to make up my own lyrics as I know none of the words! Clare and the rest of the cast has given it their all – and as the reviews in the press and people who have seen the show will attest, the result is a performance of Sweeney Todd that I know everyone in the society is incredibly proud of, and a performance that will be remembered.

Well done to all – here are a selection of photos I took during the dress rehearsal.