"Sweeney Todd," starring Michael Ball and Imelda Staunton, at the Adelphi Theatre (8th September 2012)

Stuff and Nonsense by Amy Cockram is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

Warning: there is a bit of rudeness in this post again.

At the end of last year I heard about the new production of "Sweeney Todd" that cast Michael Ball in the title role.  I unwisely made a couple of comments on Twitter - I can't remember exactly what now - disagreeing with the casting.  I was, quite rightly, picked up on this by a Michael Ball fan, subsequently felt guilty, and wrote this.  Despite being sceptical about the casting, as a huge Sondheim fan I took the opportunity to see the production with my parents (but without Mark, who is musicals adverse).

I think my parents were relieved that I liked it, because I did warn them that I would get very ranty if I thought that the production was badly done.  I knew it was going to be good when I wanted to leave during the opening piece of music.  I know how odd that sounds.  I love the opening of "Sweeney Todd," and I think it should be full-on and powerful - if it doesn't make me feel a bit claustrophobic and oppressed, then they aren't doing it right.  In this particular production I almost felt close to tears with its intensity but, in honesty, PMT at the time might have had some bearing on this.  If you don't know the musical, its themes take in the evils of industrialisation and the opening piece of of music has a sudden, piercing factory whistle (or, in one production that I saw years ago, a scream). On my first hearing of the production - courtesy of the OBC recording - the factory whistle scared the hell out of me, which I loved.  I used to miss the fact that the factory whistle no longer made me jump as it did that very first time.  However, because I had fallen from the path of true enlightenment and not listened to any Sondheim for a while, I forgot exactly when it came in so still had a bit of a jump.  It was nice to get that feeling back again.

I am pleased to say that I was wrong to doubt the casting of Michael Ball as Sweeney.  He looked almost unrecognisable (someone told me afterwards that when it first opened there were people who wanted a refund because they thought they had seen it on a night Michael Ball wasn't on) and sounded very different to the tone and timbre that I associate with his singing style.  Apart from the occasional slightly more lyrical parts - like his love song to his razors - his voice was rougher and harsher than I usually think of him sounding.  He has a particularly effective glower.  I think Sweeney should obviously be intense and scary - I still think of Len Cariou as my idea of Sweeney from the OBC - but this was the first time I thought of it as a problem.  Anyone in their right mind would take one look at him and decide that there was no way he would be coming near their neck with a cut-throat (the clue's in the name) razor.  It's also - and explain this to me if you can, because I don't understand it - the sexiest I have seen him.  If anything, my one issue with his performance might be that he takes it too seriously - "A Little Priest" seemed a little bit heavy, whereas I personally think it should have a lighter touch and bring out a bit more of the humour and devilish merriment in their verbal sparring.

Imelda Staunton was great, but I never doubted that she would be.  While I still rate Len Cariou as my most effective Sweeney, I have issues with Angela Lansbury's accent in the OBC.  I possibly prefer Imelda Staunton's Mrs Lovett.  The character should provide the warmth and humour to counterpoint Sweeney's violence - twisted and amoral though she may be - and Imelda Staunton is perfectly cast to provide this leavening.  Yet there is also pathos, sadness and desperation in her portrayal, particularly in her performance of "By the Sea" - Mrs Lovett's fantasy of keeping a boarding house by the sea with Sweeney where "now and then [he] can do a guest in" - in which her hopes and wishes are blatantly ignored by the monomaniacal Sweeney.

This was a production that kept in Judge Turpin's song "Johanna," in which he whips himself while fantasising about his young ward.  There is an effective ambiguity to this song in whether his self-flagellation is the punishment it ostensibly is (mea culpa) or is integral to his sexual excitement.  I normally admire this song because I think it is artistically quite brave and risky, as well as saying a lot about Turpin's sexual perversion.  However, this time, sitting between my parents while watching a middle-aged man whip himself to orgasm, the social discomfort made me wish for the first time that they had cut it out (I'm being facetious - really I'm pleased that they had the nerve to include it).  I'm also glad we weren't sitting near the front, as the actor (John Bowe) really seemed to be going for it and sweat seemed to be flying.  When I go to the theatre I personally prefer not to end up covered with someone else's sweat.  He didn't get a round of applause after this number, which is understandable as somehow it seems deeply inappropriate to clap after a number with a middle-aged man self-flagellating while fantasising about - if you do the maths - a 16 year old girl.

Judge Turpin was my main issue with the production, and it would be unfair to blame the actor for this as he was presumably directed to play the role in that way that he did.  He seemed to be particularly over-the top, almost syphilitically randy.  I'm not surprised that Johanna didn't want to marry him, since he seemed to be groping himself whilst suggesting himself as a possible husband.  I personally feel that this part is more effective if played as outwardly respectable while concealing a heart of darkness.  This judge seemed to be wearing his dark heart on his sleeve a little too obviously.

I have to say that my mother liked the production less than my father and I did; I think she was a bit squeamish about the throat cutting (which wasn't too graphic except, probably for emphasis, Judge Turpin was a bit blood-spurty).  I was actually more surprised that this production is probably the most graphic I have seen in bringing out the sexual violence and madness in the story.  The dumb show of the forced seduction of Benjamin Barker's wife by Turpin was particularly unambiguous.  The beggarwoman  - Lucy - is clearly sexualised in approaching men, but so were the inmates of Fogg's asylum.  One mad woman very clearly had a hand busy under her skirts. I felt that this aspect of the production - with the possible exception of the overly-priapic judge - was very effective.

This was an excellent production which, despite my initial doubts, I am very glad that I saw (I am writing this on 22nd September which, by coincidence, I think might be the closing night of the production).  I bought the cast recording as a memento, which serves as a fine reminder of the show (although, oddly, omits the Judge's whipping song - OK, maybe not that oddly - and the shaving contest with Pirelli, which were both in the stage production).

See, you have to give me some credit, at least I admit when I am wrong: Michael Ball was great after all...

A Twitter tenet: broken

Stuff and Nonsense by Amy Cockram is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

Today I did something that I swore to myself a while ago that I would not do: I made some negative comments about someone famous on Twitter.

I think most of us have done it - I certainly have, although more recently I have tried not to.  I've put up a tweet about someone famous - say someone on X-Factor (in this particular example I use the word famous wrongly) - because I thought that I was being funny, without stopping to think whether what I was saying was hurtful.  Recently I have tried to censor myself more and not tweet something if I thought it would cause offense to the person it was about, if they discovered it.

The problem is that Twitter is deceptively impersonal.  You can put something out there into the ether; make the inner monologue outer (and anyone who has worked with someone who talks to themselves will know how annoying this can be), and forget that it can be read by anyone on Twitter - including the person that the tweet is about.  I think it is a good rule that you shouldn't tweet something about a person on Twitter if you wouldn't feel comfortable to say it to their face.

Of course, the argument is that any famous person gets used to negative comments; that it goes with the job.  But I came to the conclusion that it doesn't make it right for me to add to that barrage of criticism and personal comments.  My personal opinion is fine - that I don't think someone is right for a part, for example - but a personal comment about something over which they have less control, such as weight, is something that I would try to avoid.  I have recently felt quite uncomfortable with some of the negative tweets about competitors on "Young Apprentice."  These are, after all, people who are very young and are trying to work out who they are and who they want to be.  Yes, some of them are quite annoying, but I doubt there are many of us that aren't a) rather ashamed of some things that we said or did when a teenager and b) don't still rankle with something critical that was said about us at the time when we were younger (no? just me then). 

This morning on Twitter I had a rant about Michael Ball being cast as Sweeney Todd (sorry, Alicia).  Actually I don't think my rant was too bad as it wasn't so much disrespect for his talents - Dad told me he was great in "Hairspray" - as the fact that it is one of my favourite musicals and I really felt that he wasn't good casting for that part.  Sweeney Todd should be powerful and threatening (I still haven't found a version that beats Len Cariou on the OBC), and I didn't believe that he is capable of that menace.    

Since my rant, I picked up a spirited defence from a Michael Ball and musical theatre fan on Twitter.  I had tweeted that I had a bad experience seeing him in "Passion," which she quite fairly pointed out was now over 10 years ago (which had also occurred to me now that I have calmed down after my initial indignation).  She also told me that Sondheim has seen and enjoyed the show, and I am sure he knows a lot better than I do what makes a good Sweeney.

I've realised that maybe my crime in this instance wasn't making a personal comment on Twitter: it was passing judgement on something before I have seen it.  I know that the great Mark Kermode says that he tries to go into a film with an open mind, even if it is the latest in a franchise he dislikes, or, even worse, a film by Michael Bay (or, worse again, a Michael Bay franchise).  This is a good tenet to observe, and I am not very good at this.  I sometimes enjoy the chance to have an unreasonable rant about something in the arts about which I have a preconceived bias.  In the past I have scared someone with one of my rants, as he seemed unable to make the distinction that he was on the receiving end of an abstract rant and I wasn't angry with him.  But when you put that rant on Twitter, you put your unreasoned bias in the public domain. 

I love "Sweeney Todd," and I have nothing to gain if I am right in believing that this is a bad piece of casting.  Apparently it has already tried out in Chichester and got great reviews, and he does look completely different and more threatening in the promotional material.  My parents have asked me if I would like to see it with them (Mark is allergic to musicals, so isn't keen), and I am thinking about it.  I like Imelda Staunton a lot, and I think she will be a great Mrs Lovett.  If I do go to see it, and he turns out to be the best Sweeney I have ever seen, I will be very happy.  And hopefully, if that happens, my Twitter rant will have been forgotten by then so I don't end up looking like an idiot.

New York day 1

Stuff and Nonsense by Amy Cockram is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.


On our first full day in New York we got up early and went to the Rockefeller Center. I think that this might have been my favourite time in New York - when the city is less crowded, and your main street fellows are early rising businessmen and women with their Starbucks coffee cups for a caffeine hit.

New York will seem familiar to anyone who watches lots of films. I got a bit overexcited that early morning and took a photo of a random intersection just because an iconic yellow cab was going past. The streets really do have iron grids which you can imagine Marilyn Monroe standing above in a billowing white dress (and which demand a whole new skill set when walking in heels). The subways unsettlingly call to mind shoot-outs with the bad guys hiding behind slightly discoloured, grimy pillars. Or horror films with nasty little creatures skittering in the dark (after watching "Cloverfield" I really wasn't sure about going to New York - it always seems to be attacked by big, scary monsters in the movies).

Actually my subway horror movie of choice would be "Mimic." It is maybe not a cinematic masterpiece, but Jeremy Northam is damn fine.

In keeping with the many businessmen and women, we started the day with a Starbucks breakfast(raspberry coffee cake in honour of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum and a dark cherry mocha which was pleasantly like drinking black forest gateaux). I'm still getting over the disappointment that Starbucks don't seem to do the dark cherry mocha in the UK.

Our first sightseeing experience was going to the top of the Rockefeller Centre. I quite liked the Rock and I did think that it had better views of NY than the Empire State (and I did have it pointed out to me before going that you can't take a photo of the Empire State Building from the Empire State Building!). If you are a romantic, then the morning we went the city was shrouded in softening mist - if you are a realist, then the city was obscured by smog. The Rockefeller Centre has a great view of Central Park, which gives you an idea of the expanse of real estate given over to greenery (it is apparently the same size as Monaco). Sadly, the view of one of New York's most loved buildings - the Chrysler - is partially obscured by the less attractive Metlife building when viewed from the Top of the Rock.

After exploring the Rockefeller Centre, we decided to go and pick up our theatre tickets (for "A Little Night Music") to make sure we could find the theatre - and they were also doing signings of the CD cast recording that day. To get there, we walked through Times Square. Times Square is a monument to consumerism and a nightmare of an electricity bill.

When we got to the theater, there were already people queueing for the signing. My husband was very understanding in losing 3 hours of precious sightseeing time in a queue. I have been a huge fan of Stephen Sondheim since I was a teenager (which, sadly, is now quite a long time ago). So when a friend, Alan, told me that Sondheim was doing a signing while we were in New York, it felt like an opportunity that I could not miss. There was a pleasant, chatty, camaraderie in our bit of the queue. I know the side of the Walter Kerr theatre quite well now - it has a kind of waterfall down the side of the building, which might be unfortunate if you had missed your chance for a toilet break before joining the queue.

I felt nervous. It wasn't exactly how I would have liked to have met Sondheim (I had a big spot on my cheek, I had spilt grape juice on my top - which luckily was purple, so it didn't show - and my comfortable boots had started to disintegrate). Rather than have to break in new boots while walking around New York, I had temporarily managed to fix my old ones by sewing them up and fixing it with glue. So I wasn't at my most socially poised (I'm never that socially poised anyway). They actually did the signing on the stage - so I can literally say with pride that I have been on stage on Broadway. And they had put down the red carpet treatment. I'm relieved to say that I didn't make an idiot of myself (which I worried about doing). The whole cast was there for the signing. I wished Sondheim a belated happy birthday, and he said thank you. I'm just glad that I said something to him that wasn't ridiculous, and that he said something back to me. I'd rather not say anything to someone I admire, than say something that might make them think that I am a fawning gimp. He won't remember me of course, but at least I didn't make an idiot of myself in front of someone that I admire a lot. Despite the glued shoes.

From there we had a late lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe in Times Square (I'm not entirely sure that it's not criminal to go from meeting Sondheim to the Hard Rock Cafe - but I felt that we should also do some cheesey American things). I actually wasn't feeling too hungry, so I ordered a starter size of nachos (which turned out to be huge - the only time in America that we really experienced the fabled massive portions of food).

We then spent the rest of the afternoon walking around various sights. We went to see the art deco grandeur of the Chrysler Building. This is my husband's favourite building, and I think he was suitably impressed by the rich golds and pinky-red marble of the lobby. We saw the extravagant concourse of Grand Central Station with its dance of bustling commuters, but didn't explore the passages below (only since returning have I heard of the acoustics of the whispering corners in the passages of the station). Helene Hanff describes Grand Central Station as being beloved by tourists for its grandeur, but hated by native New Yorkers for its complicated platforms. We also explored a very grand building that turned out to be New York's Public Library - a huge, overwhelming building.

Our last stop of that day was back to the Rock. We had a drink in the bar downstairs, from which you can view the skaters on the ice rink outside. I found myself longing to see a show-off skater fall over - and then felt very chastened and guilty when he stopped to help a wobbly young child who didn't seem very confident on the ice.

I would recommend the day and night ticket at the Rockefeller Centre, which allows you to go up twice in one day. We used our second time to get some night photos. We actually went up to the top while it was still light, and waited for the sun to set. I'm not a great photographer, but the photos that I took at sunset on this day were probably my favourite of the trip. It was a great way to end the day.

Happy 80th birthday, Stephen Sondheim!

Stuff and Nonsense by Amy Cockram is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 UK: England & Wales License.

Last week I listened to Radio 3's Composer of the Week series on Stephen Sondheim. I have strayed from the true path in recent years, but this series has reminded me how much I love some of his writing.

Stephen Sondheim and I have a long history. I first became aware of him when I was a teenager. I listened to "Songs from the Shows" on Sunday evenings on Radio 2, and had a huge crush on the - I think - sexy voice of the presenter (David Kernan). The first cast recordings I bought - because I knew he was in them - were "Side by Side by Sondheim" (which I still love) and the Original London Cast (OLC) of "A Little Night Music." The first song of Sondheim's that I remember falling in love with was the beautiful "Take me to the World" from the little known "Evening Primrose."

From there, I became completely obsessed. If you look at the contents of my ipod now, you would find quite a variety of classical, pop, audiobooks and musicals. But when I was at university I was a Sondheim purist and hardly ever listened to anything else (my husband would have hated it - he is highly musical adverse, and I've never managed to get him past the opening song of "Sunday in the Park with George").

I am not a musically technical person, so I came to Sondheim through loving his lyrics. I normally find it hard to cope with the saccharin sweetness and cloying sentiment of many musicals - but Sondheim's musicals tend to have a healthy cynicism, intelligence, and a strong vein of (sometimes black) humour.

Sometimes with Sondheim a love song is not a love song - or is not just a love song. Things are more complicated when in context. "Not While I'm Around" is a beautiful song ("Nothing's gonna harm you / Not while I'm around"), and yet in "Sweeney Todd" it is subverted when Mrs Lovett reprises the song to try to convince Tobias that he is safe (he really isn't). While walking to work today I listened to "Assassins," which has a love duet called "Unworthy of Your Love." The man and woman in this song are not in love with each other, however - one is John Hinkley, who is singing about his obsession with Jodie Foster (which contributed to his attempt to assassinate Ronald Reagan), and the other is Lynette Fromme who tried to assassinate Gerald Ford (and she is singing of her love for mass-murderer Charles Manson). Even if you aren't aware of the context, the song itself is uncomfortably fervent - in context it is downright creepy and disturbing. I love that things are not always as straightforward as they seem.

I've seen a few of his shows on stage, but I'm very excited that we are going to New York next week and we are going to see "A Little Night Music" on Broadway. It's starring Angela Lansbury - which I am excited about as a Sondheim fan, and as someone who loved "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" as a child.

I'm now a bit torn between thinking if you get to 80, maybe you should have the right to retire - but I'm also thinking that it would be great to see a new Sondheim show. He seems to have spent an unconscionable amount of time flogging an idea about the Mizner Brothers, which I have never really taken to in any of its incarnations. I'd love to see him work on something new....