As a musical, Sweeney Todd was razor-sharp. The vocals from every cast member ranging from the protagonist to the ensemble members were impressive. Zak Ghazi-Torbati as Sweeney gave a powerful vocal performance and the other leads and ensemble members did extremely well especially when handling as technically difficult a score as Sondheim’s with very few sound cues in the music. The moments when the ensemble cast created a wall of sound were mesmerising, the harmonies were on point and the orchestra did a remarkable job. However, all of this did mean that the instances of mere dialogue were a bit lacklustre in comparison.

The level of acting was somewhat weaker during points when the performers were left without musical accompaniment; but this in itself says something about their commanding and impassioned vocals, where for some their acting potential was focused. However, because of the rarity of occasions of solely dialogue in the musical, this did not detract too much from my overall opinion of the production. Additionally, within the cast there were exceptions to this perception; notably Joe Pitts whose physicality and characterisation made him utterly convincing as the childish Toby. His ending epilogue was the most haunting moment of the show. Honourable mention must also go to Tom Beaven's Judge Turpin who perfected the balance between musical brashness and subtlety of acting and also to the comic ability of Brandon Levin as Pirelli who livened up the first act. Aoife Kennan skilfully mixed a cockney accent, good diction and considerable comedic talent to bring the immoral yet jocular Mrs Lovett to life.

Yet the comedic performances outshined the horrific or sentimental ones. This could be attributed to the innovative, albeit constrictive, staging of the production as the action of the demon barber’s parlour was confined to a considerably cramped space upstage. This setting, where Sweeney should be at his most maniacal and sinister, was isolated by its distance from the audience and its proximity to the stage lights, which together with the white face paint of characters obscured the acting of particularly Ghazi-Torbati. An alternative interpretation is that his physical detachment from the audience could have resulted in complacency as to the exaggeration of this menacing side of his character. Other than this one example, choreography and staging were inventive and utilised the breadth, depth and all aspects of the ADC stage effectively.

In general, I would say that this production handled the humorous aspects of the story better than the moments of horror. The directorial team of Marthe de Ferrer and Georgie Henley even extracted laughs from the less obvious sheer incredulity of the quintessential musical romantic side-plot where boy meets girl and they instantly fall in love as well as in response to Sondheim’s black humour. This tone could be specific to the audience of the evening but whether this leaning towards the humorous side of things is directorial intention or not is unrecognisable.

It is perhaps a result of this leaning that the ingenious contraption of the barber chair produced more of a comedic effect than one of shock and horror. Other technical elements of the musical were fairly seamless other than a few microphone malfunctions and missed cues that can be expected - especially from a musical - on opening night.

Sweeney Todd was a thoroughly entertaining production even while it was more light-hearted than I had anticipated because of less of a focus on the maniacal aspects of characters in favour of the black humour. Although the musical aspect of the production was spectacularly composed and performed by a group of talented musicians, the thriller side of things was less obvious and could have been improved slightly with more horrific gravitas on the part of the actors or even more fake blood.