Sweeney Todd at the NFT

This evening I was treated to a preview of 'Sweeney Todd' at the National Film Theatre (a nice way to end a long week). I saw the musical performed in the West End a few years ago, the production involving pouring buckets of blood all over the place that transferred to Broadway (I wasn't blown away by it and recall the tiniest seats with no leg room in the theatre). Anyway, with Tim Burton directing and Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham-Carter as the leads, it has to be worth a viewing.

It opens as it means to go on, very dark and brooding, oppressive atmosphere and Johnny and Helena incredibly and painfully pallid (I suspect the sun was banned from London back in those days). Both had interesting east end-type speaking and singing accents and, within a few words of his first song I couldn't help but wonder if David Bowie ('Laughing Gnome' period) had dubbed Johnny's vocals. He pulled it off though and so did Helena (I was quite impressed with Helena).

Johnny was almost painful to watch some of the time, all haunted eyes and obsession - I'd definitely cross the road to avoid him if I saw his Sweeney in the street. Helena was excellent and helped to lighten the tone every now and then with a quip or a look. Of course, she was all hair and lips and big frock. Alan Rickman was suitably pervy, Ali G was oddly built in the trouser department and Timothy Spall was nicely creepy (I liked his cane-work, must have done lots of practicing and had sore hands for a while).

Apart from the seeming physical relief when the almost-monochrome transformed into much-needed colour every now and then, the only problem was that the sound mix sometimes didn't work for me (unless my hearing's going dodgy) - in a couple of songs the music was too far to the front, partially obscuring the vocals. Overall it was a good marriage of sound and visuals even though I looked away at a couple of the throat-slashings and ouch-inducing body dumpings ...

I enjoyed it and Chris and Angela (both Sondheim fans) agreed that the right songs had been cut to make it work as a film. So thumbs up all round.

As a surprise treat, Tim Burton went up on stage after the film for a short interview and then some Q&A. It was interesting to hear him talk about the film but the Q&A from the audience was a bit predictable as these things often are. So that made for an interesting Friday evening!