London, in all its dreariness. Benjamin Barker, an upstanding barber of humble beginnings, is unjustly sentenced to a long prison term by Judge Turpin, who has his eye on Barker’s beautiful wife. Years later, Barker returns with only one thing on his mind: revenge. He learns from Mrs Lovett, the completely burnt-out but business-savvy owner of a meat-pie shop, that his wife has killed herself. And so Benjamin Barker, alias Sweeney Todd, not only embarks on an extremely efficient campaign of revenge, he also joins forces with his informant to start a flourishing joint venture in the meat-pie business …

The story of the ‘demonic barber of Fleet Street’ who became a mass murderer first appeared in 1846 as a penny dreadful entitled The String of Pearls, and has since served as the basis for numerous dramatic and cinematic adaptations. In composing this thriller musical, Sondheim drew inspiration from film soundtracks as well as Richard Wagner’s use of leitmotif. Barrie Kosky stages his vision of this classic musical as a ‘children’s theatre nightmare collage’, revelling in that lust for horror, wavering between disgust and laughter, that has always fascinated audiences.

He mercilessly digs into the question of what humans are capable of when they follow the logic of revenge to the bitter end, and what’s at stake in the process.

BY THE WAY

Cannibalism has featured in myths and fairy tales since antiquity: Chronos eats his children, Titus Andronicus bakes his dead enemies into pies, and the wicked witch intends to eat Hansel for dinner.