The Kantanti Ensemble served up Stephen Sondheim’s ever-popular tale of the demon barber with trademark relish to a Lewes crowd typically hungry for cultural titbits. And no-one was disappointed. The chorus’s lip-smacking verdict on Mrs Lovett’s pies - “God, that’s good!” - might have been what we were all thinking about this delicious performance.
Gina Cameron stole the show as the scheming but ever-practical Mrs Lovett, with comic timing which revealed anew Sondheim’s inventive brilliance as well as her own. Why Stephen Kennedy as Sweeney Todd was reading his lines from an iPad, a factor in his uneasy and uneven performance, was not clear from the programme notes but it’s a measure of the Kantanti’s strength as an ensemble that this semi-staged production was able to carry it. James Brock as the doomed innocent, Tobias, showed the kind of promise that’s hair-raisingly exciting when you read in the notes that he’s only now doing his A-levels.
Without set, props (except for a glistening cut-throat razor) and with only minimal costume, the emphasis was on Sondheim’s music and, as ever, conductor Lee Reynolds matched the explosive energy, sensitivity and attention to detail that makes this work a masterpiece.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article