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Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd is set in an almost monochrome London in the latter half of the 1800s.

It's a grand guignol that pays homage to the Victorian melodrama, while providing us with as much realistic throat slitting as you'd ever see in a more conventional slasher movie and it's a musical.

Don't let that fact put you off, though. This is nothing like Lionel Bart's Oliver and the one singing child - Ed Sanders, from Brighton - is extremely good. He could sing Nothing's Going To Harm You on CD and my granny would buy it at Christmas, little realising its dark meaning.

As translations from stage to screen go, this is terrific. Neither Johnny Depp nor Helena Bonham Carter are singers, but they manage to transcend any thoughts of they would have to have been cast wouldn't they?' and provide us with something unexpected.

Depp's Todd is a deeply psychotic man - where his singing voice lacks power, his undoubted acting ability provides clarity, both vocally and emotionally.

Bonham Carter's Mrs Lovett, meanwhile, eschews the stages comic gorgon. She may miss quite a lot of the comedy, but manages to compensate with some beautiful underplaying that reinvents the character and brings it to life on screen.

Screenwriter John Logan, whose adaptation is one of the best dark film musicals' since Cabaret, has deftly cut the stage play, although the scene where Sweeney and Mrs Lovett get the idea of turning their corpses into meat pies is a waste. That said, Sondheim's work has never been done this well on screen.

The last image of the film shows the genius of Mr Burton's cinematic art. The audience wanted to applaud and then didn't. Suffice it to say that this is one film that hits you square in the jugular.

Richard Gallagher

9:40am Wednesday 30th January 2008

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