Transcript
Speaker: Hello and welcome to Sunday on the Pod with Casey, Flo and Rosa.
Speaker: Welcome to Sunday on the Pod.
Speaker: Sunday on the Pod is a podcast all about musical theatre.
Speaker: However, this podcast isn't just for performers, but it's for anyone who loves musical theatre.
Speaker: Each episode we cover musicals that some of you might love, some of you might hate, or maybe you've never heard of them before.
Speaker: Either way, we will be singing and dancing about them.
Speaker: If you didn't already know, we pick a musical and discuss its plot, the show's creators dissecting specific songs lyrically, musically, delving into any juicy gossip in our brand new segment called Stage Door Secrets, and my personal favourite, putting on our very own casting director hats and choosing a fantasy cast with another brand new segment, the Mega Mix Casting.
Speaker: There's a lot of new changes and I can't wait to get stuck in, so...
Speaker: What are you waiting for?
Speaker: Sit back and enjoy the pod.
Speaker: As always, this is just a reminder as well that the best way to support our show is by rating and reviewing us wherever you listen.
Speaker: We're available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts and you can keep up with us on socials too.
Speaker: We are at Sunday on the Pod on Insta and Twitter and you can find us on our Facebook page as well, Sunday on the Pod.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: This episode we are covering a Goliath of a show that is Sweeney Todd.
Speaker: I tend to tell a Sweeney Todd.
Speaker: Now, we all know that it is a monster of a show, and like any Sondheim show, it is an absolute beast with so much to get through.
Speaker: So for this episode, we have decided to slightly alter the structure and do a two-parter.
Speaker: Very exciting.
Speaker: What a way to kick off 2024.
Speaker: So as Casey said, this first episode, we're going to be doing a bit of a deep dive on the production development history of Sweeney Todd.
Speaker: We'll look a little bit at the casting creatives of the original production,
Speaker: Before moving on to our Stage Door Secrets section and of course our Mega Mix casting.
Speaker: And then next month we're going to do a Music Deep Deb, baby.
Speaker: So we're going to be looking at all the iconic songs from Sweeney Todd, breaking down the lyrics, breaking down that clever, clever Sondheim music.
Speaker: And yeah, I think it's going to be a real, real treat.
Speaker: Music
Speaker: So, the musical Sweeney Todd was based on Christopher Bond's 1970s play Sweeney Todd, with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and the book by Hugh Wheeler.
Speaker: They decided to turn it into a musical because Sondheim had said that he felt that the addition of music would greatly increase the size of the drama, transforming it into a completely different theatrical experience.
Speaker: So, the original production premiered on Broadway at the Eurys Theatre on March 1st, 1979 and closed just over a year later on June 29th, 1980 after a respectable run of 557 performances.
Speaker: The production was directed by Hal Prince and the cast included Angela Lansbury as Mrs Lovett, Len Carrioux as Sweeney Todd and Victor Garber as Anthony.
Speaker: I never knew that
Speaker: Victor Garber was in the original cast of yeah me neither I had no idea he was and I've got a bit of a confession I think Victor Garber is so hot even at even at his age now I don't know what it is about that man but I fancy him so much he was he was weirdly really fit in Titanic and I don't know why like I don't know what it was constantly fit
Speaker: Yeah, but then to be fair, if anyone's seen Legally Blonde, which we probably all have, he was slimy in that.
Speaker: Oh, he's such a creep.
Speaker: Oh, Victor, Victor.
Speaker: See, in my head, I see Victor Garber as Daddy Warbucks in Annie.
Speaker: Have you ever seen the... Oh my God, yes.
Speaker: Because there's obviously the original film of Annie, but then there's the Disney version in which he plays Daddy Warbucks.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker: There's something about him.
Speaker: It's just...
Speaker: 74 and he's still doing it for me and also if you want more if you want uh more victor garber content watch the um the 1997 cinderella that oh okay oh my god as well which has got such a great cast actually really like it's got um whitney houston brandy
Speaker: Victor Garber, Whoopi Goldberg, Bernadette Peters.
Speaker: Oh my God, of course he's in the Brandy Cinderella.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: Yeah, he plays the dad, does he?
Speaker: Yeah, he's the dad.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: Have you never seen that?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: No, and I love that he used it.
Speaker: I'm obsessed with her.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Brandy's amazing in it as well.
Speaker: She's so gorgeous in that film.
Speaker: They've put it on Disney Plus, but the... Oh my God, it's my favourite version of Cinderella.
Speaker: And then I'd seen...
Speaker: maybe like two days ago, that they've actually put a reunion on.
Speaker: So like the 1997 Cinderella reunion.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: So I will be watching that.
Speaker: So yeah, Victor Garber as Anthony, along with many other respectable names, the production was nominated for nine Tony Awards and it won eight.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: I can imagine though.
Speaker: I mean...
Speaker: I can't, yeah, I mean, actually, to be fair, my mum, she was telling me that she actually saw it on Broadway back in the day.
Speaker: She saw it, like the original production, and I am so jealous.
Speaker: And she was like, I cannot tell you how good it was.
Speaker: Like she said, I can remember it even now.
Speaker: I can literally close my eyes.
Speaker: I can see it.
Speaker: It was that good.
Speaker: So I'm so jealous.
Speaker: But then to be fair, I did see it with Imelda Staunton.
Speaker: So I'm kind of like, well, I mean, I've seen pretty, I really, hey, I really liked her as Mrs. Lovett.
Speaker: I really, really liked her as Mrs. Lovett.
Speaker: But it's weird though, because some people, some people have a mixed opinion of her.
Speaker: And I'm like, I will not say a bad word about her.
Speaker: She could read, you know, the newspaper to me.
Speaker: And I'd be like, yep.
Speaker: yeah keep going ever since i saw her in gypsy i was just oh oh my god sorry such a such a detour but have we all booked tickets for hello dolly yet oh as in the the screening no they're bringing so they obviously got the hello dolly with amelle staunton oh yeah yeah i mean i'm not the biggest hello dolly girl ah
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: Sorry.
Speaker: We'll do a trip out though.
Speaker: I think we should do like a Sunday on the Pod trip out and Casey can scream at me until I like it.
Speaker: I do like it.
Speaker: I'm just like not the biggest dolly head.
Speaker: I literally, we got told, this is why I have such beef with my university experience, because we got told at the start of third year that a big, big possibility for our end of year show was Hello Dolly.
Speaker: And I was.
Speaker: I know, I remember that.
Speaker: I was so ready.
Speaker: And then they were like, lol, we're going to do Rock of Ages.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: But we didn't even end up doing that.
Speaker: We did Grease, which I don't know.
Speaker: They went all around the world with our shows, which was strange.
Speaker: but yeah I haven't booked tickets yet for it because with going to shows in London it's such a pain in like I'd have to pay for a hotel and travel down and things like that so yeah it's such a you are always more than welcome to stay here as a slight aside to the podcast yeah anyone at home if you need someone to stay just stay at Rosa's
Speaker: It opened at the Theatre Royal, starring Dennis Quigley and Sheila Hancock.
Speaker: The show wasn't as well received over here in the UK, and Swin' Todd closed on November the 14th, 1980, after only 157 performances.
Speaker: But even after the mixed reviews, the production did receive the Olivier Award for Best New Musical, but that was all it won that year.
Speaker: But yeah, it closed really quite quickly when it came over here.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I think like there's more of a like it's more of a it's obviously like an English story.
Speaker: Yes you'd think that we'd be like we're obsessed.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But then there's, I suppose there's an interesting part of that where I kind of go into it a little bit later.
Speaker: Obviously, one of the main conceits of the show is this push and pull between the Industrial Revolution and the workers.
Speaker: And one of the big metaphors of the show, when Hal Prince directed it,
Speaker: was around like basically industrial revolution like spitting out Sweeney Todd's because obviously they were massively exploited and poverty was on the rise and stuff so it might have also it might just also be for London audiences they're like a little bit so close to home what a depressing landscape I've also think that it's quite edgy isn't it well I mean not quite edgy it's actually a very edgy musical and
Speaker: I'm trying to think, but I'm thinking like 1980, wasn't everyone a bit more like liberal and like into... I feel like this happens today with some musicals where like a brand new musical comes out, everyone's like, meh.
Speaker: But then like 10 years later, they're like, oh my God, it's amazing.
Speaker: And you're like, it's been out for ages.
Speaker: So I feel like that just sometimes happens with musicals.
Speaker: But I think it's more to do with like for this specific thing, like for this specific show,
Speaker: Definitely London audiences, if you think of the context of that time, we're in Thatcher's Britain, money is low.
Speaker: Workers are being exploited, you've got the minor strikes, the economy is at an all-time low.
Speaker: Musical theatre and the West End, that's escapism.
Speaker: Do you really want to... Do audiences really want to be watching that on stage?
Speaker: Do they want to just be reminded of...
Speaker: the kind of push and pull between the upper classes and the working classes.
Speaker: Like, I can't imagine if you were in that situation.
Speaker: No, you just wouldn't want to go and watch that.
Speaker: You would want to go and watch something that's a bit more joyful.
Speaker: I guess also, like, if there was a musical, like, about COVID, we wouldn't be like, I have to go see this musical.
Speaker: We'd be like, absolutely not.
Speaker: I do not want to go see that.
Speaker: So I don't think anyone would want to go see that, but...
Speaker: yeah I think like some and because it's obviously gone on to become so revered and like almost reassessed years afterwards by critics it is probably just because there's been a bit more of separation from that time and you can look back on it during you can look back on it with that lens rather than you know at the time being like
Speaker: I mean, I just wouldn't... During the minor strike, I would not want to go and watch fucking Sweeney Todd.
Speaker: It took 10 years for the production to get a revival.
Speaker: So in 1989, it reopened on Broadway, but this time to a mixed reception after it had been so successful 10 years prior.
Speaker: So the production was only nominated for four Tonys that year, and it failed to win any.
Speaker: And the production closed after 189 performances.
Speaker: So yeah, maybe that was more to do with the actual production rather than the show itself.
Speaker: But yeah, so that one didn't last very long.
Speaker: And then after that, we see a few revivals sort of popping up both on Broadway and the West End.
Speaker: So there was a 1993 London revival and then a 2004 London revival.
Speaker: And then on to 2005, the Broadway revival starring the incredible Patti LuPone,
Speaker: Oh, that would have been so good.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: She needs to come over here.
Speaker: She needs to do it.
Speaker: Oh, but you can catch a snippet of Pat Leaphone's Mrs. Lovett at the Sondheim 80th birthday concert.
Speaker: My favorite concert of all time.
Speaker: because um I can't remember who the other who the other guy the other Sweeney that they get uh she does a little priest with Len Currieu and then another Sweeney I can't remember the guy's name which is really bad and it's so funny and brilliant and oh just everything so you can audience you can get a snippet of Pilepon doing Mrs. Lovett and it's everything that you'd ever want it's on YouTube we'll post a link to it on our stories oh my god
Speaker: Reading into this production, which I never knew, and I was like, this is a really random fact.
Speaker: But in this production, the actors all played their own instruments on stage with Michael Severus, who played Todd on guitar, and Patti LuPone on the tuba.
Speaker: No way.
Speaker: Since when does she play the tuba?
Speaker: I had no idea.
Speaker: To be fair, you know what?
Speaker: She is a woman of many, many talents.
Speaker: But that is...
Speaker: I was trying to picture how that would work.
Speaker: Was she like, it's priest.
Speaker: How was that even happening?
Speaker: I was going to say, especially like imagining like the really dramatic, like sad moments of being like, oh my God, he's dead.
Speaker: And then being like, here's my tuber.
Speaker: And I ended up bringing out this giant tuber.
Speaker: Like it would just be so bizarre.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: So, wonderfully.
Speaker: She actually played Bells and the two in that production.
Speaker: And apparently she has always played the tuba.
Speaker: She has like an Ask Patti section of her website.
Speaker: And this girl asked, I was lucky enough to see Sweeney Todd at the end of August and you and your tuba playing was definitely the best night of my life.
Speaker: I was wondering if you ever named your tuba in high school or during the show or at any other time.
Speaker: Patti answers, yes, my tuba's name is Irene.
Speaker: Irene, I wonder what that's after.
Speaker: Every night at the end of the show, she went back into the dressing room closet with me and I would open it and I would say, good night, Irene.
Speaker: Oh, God.
Speaker: I just really like Patti LuPone playing the tuba is not something that I thought I would ever see.
Speaker: I'd want to see that though.
Speaker: I'd want to see that.
Speaker: I've just looked it up and there is clips.
Speaker: There's clips.
Speaker: I think she played it during God That's Good from what I can see here.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So you learn something new every day.
Speaker: So the success and rave reviews of the 2005 Broadway revival is, I think, I couldn't find any direct correlation, but I think probably most likely contributed to the movie version of Sweeney Todd, which then premiered in 2007.
Speaker: on to the most recent revival because there's been so many in between.
Speaker: There's been productions in Brisbane quite a few in Asia I think as well.
Speaker: It's been kind of
Speaker: here there and everywhere so the most recent revival is the 2023 broadway production starring josh groban which every time i see josh groban's name i can't help but think who is josh groban kill yourself who is just groban kill yourself which is my favorite line from glee
Speaker: That literally, that is my favourite line from Glee.
Speaker: That and when it's like the guy's interviewing Will Schuster and he's like, what's on your iPad?
Speaker: And he's like, 80% show tunes, 20% rock.
Speaker: And then the guy's like, 100% gay.
Speaker: God.
Speaker: I need to re-watch Glee.
Speaker: I haven't seen it in years.
Speaker: I've started a re-watch.
Speaker: It's so good.
Speaker: Oh dear.
Speaker: So yeah, starring Josh Groban and Annalie Ashford as Sweeney and Love It.
Speaker: The production also had singer Jordan Fisher as Anthony and Gatton Matarazzo from Stranger Things as Toby, which I didn't know.
Speaker: Yeah, that was like a big thing at the time.
Speaker: Yeah, he went on to do that and was very good apparently.
Speaker: The stuff I've seen from that production of Sweetie Todd is just Annalie Ashford and I've tried to avoid it at all costs.
Speaker: I really like Annalie Ashford.
Speaker: I'm saying it.
Speaker: I love her.
Speaker: I'm saying it.
Speaker: I love her.
Speaker: I think she's talented.
Speaker: She's wonderfully talented.
Speaker: I think we should just stop giving her roles in which she needs to do a British accent.
Speaker: I mean, yeah.
Speaker: But then I kind of think that though with Sweeney Todd, I think that's kind of part of its charm is that it is a caricature of like Victorian London.
Speaker: Like no one really is like, Raoul, come and get your mate boys.
Speaker: No one actually kind of talks like that.
Speaker: So I kind of think it's fine.
Speaker: Like it's...
Speaker: You know, it's not meant to be.
Speaker: I can't with that.
Speaker: This is why I love the opening song with like, attend the tale of Sweeney Todd.
Speaker: I love that because it's just so extra and so empty.
Speaker: Like it's just so empty.
Speaker: It's brilliant.
Speaker: Oh dear.
Speaker: So yeah, the current production is still running on Broadway and has been since February 14th, 2023 and is set to launch a North American tour in spring, 2025.
Speaker: But like dates, cities and cast have yet to be announced for that.
Speaker: But yeah, apparently it's going to go on a big, big tour around America.
Speaker: So, Sweeney Todd, it's an absolute beast of a story.
Speaker: If you've never watched it, stop this right now and go and watch it.
Speaker: But if you don't want to do that, I'm going to tell you what it's about.
Speaker: So Sweeney Todd is actually, so as we've covered, it's based on the play, the 1970 play by Christopher Bond called Sweeney Todd.
Speaker: However, it didn't come from Christopher Bond.
Speaker: It came from the character of Sweeney Todd, which first appeared in
Speaker: in a Victorian penny dreadful.
Speaker: Now, you're probably thinking, what the hell is a penny dreadful?
Speaker: Really, really good question.
Speaker: Because I was like, is that like a coin or something?
Speaker: Basically, a penny dreadful is popular fiction from the Victorian age, which cost a penny, hence why it's called penny dreadful.
Speaker: But I'm taking the reason why it's called Dreadful is because the subject matter was usually something a bit disturbing, usually about detectives, criminals, supernatural stuff, stuff that's a bit more dark.
Speaker: Classic Victorian England love.
Speaker: And this particular one, Sweeney Todd, is from it's from a Penny Dreadful called The String of Pearls.
Speaker: and it was published in a weekly magazine during the winter of either 1846 or 47 it's kind of unknown maybe you girls will know if it's 46 or 47 but it's kind of
Speaker: That's what they said, roughly.
Speaker: And this particular kind of story was set in 1785.
Speaker: And it featured the principal villain, Sweet Todd.
Speaker: And it basically included all the plot that we have in our gorgeous swanky musical that we're talking about right now.
Speaker: It had the murderous barber story.
Speaker: And then it was then obviously then turned into the play.
Speaker: And actually, fun fact, apparently it was turned into a play before the ending had been revealed in print.
Speaker: didn't know how fascinating yeah it's really interesting isn't it so yeah and then it got craced into this play and I know that we mentioned earlier that sometime kind of mentioned that he wants to add music because he felt it would kind of enhance it but he so he went to go see the production and
Speaker: the play that was first put on at Stratford East in London.
Speaker: And he quote said, it had a weight to it because Bond wrote certain characters in blank verse, which is obviously verse without rhyme.
Speaker: He also infused into it plot elements from Jacobean tragedies and the Count of Monte Cristo.
Speaker: He was able to take all these disparate elements that had been in existence rather dully
Speaker: for for a hundred or so years and make them into a first-rate play that's basically what Sondheim said um and I can so see those Jacobean references because there is so many moments you were like oh my god um so yeah and then obviously then Sondheim um obviously Sondheim then added the music to it um
Speaker: And again, as we just talked about, it's interesting how the US audience reacted very, very differently to, say, the UK audience.
Speaker: And Sondheim himself basically said that he thought that Sweeney Todd did better in the US because the audience didn't take it so seriously.
Speaker: And that's why they kind of probably...
Speaker: Yeah, which I thought was kind of interesting.
Speaker: They probably were just like, oh, it's just a funny.
Speaker: Yeah, it's probably just a funny English play.
Speaker: Whereas obviously we're like, obviously we're like, oh my God, that's real.
Speaker: That's, I feel sad.
Speaker: And then obviously the amazing Hal Prince kind of gave it this like epic sense of what,
Speaker: the actual kind of musical was really about.
Speaker: So that's me kind of ranting about the origins, but the actual story itself is a bit of a beast, which is kind of why we've decided to split our episode into two, rightly so, because there's so many different kind of plots, subplots.
Speaker: Essentially, we open at one.
Speaker: It's a dull, gloomy night on the Thames River, and it's 1846.
Speaker: And this boat emerges from the deep, dark kind of mist.
Speaker: I'm really selling the scene.
Speaker: It's late at night.
Speaker: And we meet a young sailor called Anthony Hope, and he has just recently rescued a guy called Sweeney Todd,
Speaker: which is you'll hear a lot about him.
Speaker: And Todd basically tells him about his past, how he used to be this naive barber, and how this corrupt judge basically lusted after his wife, Joanne, and...
Speaker: the judge sent him away for basically doing nothing.
Speaker: He didn't do a crime but because the judge wanted Joanne he sent him away and I think it was probably Australia.
Speaker: If I'm thinking correctly like historically where they used to send prisoners it was usually on a boat to Australia right?
Speaker: And this is them basically re-entering London and there's a fantastic song
Speaker: where he, well, the beginning of the song, where he has like this bit where he's like, the world is full of shit and it's London.
Speaker: Like he kind of like basically tells the audience, or he thinks of London and he hates London basically.
Speaker: There's a hole in the world, like a great black pit, and it's filled with people who are filled with shit and the vermin of the world inhabit it.
Speaker: The lantern.
Speaker: Probably one of my favourite lines, but I mean, there's so many different favourite lines in this musical.
Speaker: Okay, so then they get off the boat and you basically, we get transported to Fleet Street where we see this kind of pie shop and we meet Mrs. Lovett.
Speaker: who basically talks about the fact that there's a scarcity of meat and that she serves the worst pies in London.
Speaker: And Todd basically asks about the apartment upstairs, which we learn is where he used to live with his wife, Lucy.
Speaker: Sorry, I called her Joanne earlier.
Speaker: It's Lucy is the name of his wife.
Speaker: And she kind of talks about this previous tenant called Benjamin Barker.
Speaker: And then she's like, hang on a minute, Sweeney, you're Benjamin Barker.
Speaker: And he's like, yeah, I am.
Speaker: But I now go by Sweeney Todd.
Speaker: Um, and she kind of shows that she's kept all of his, um, razors from when he used to be a barber.
Speaker: So that kind of sets the scene of their relationship.
Speaker: We then hear more a little bit about, um, Lucy, his wife.
Speaker: And he kind of asks, like, is Lucy still alive?
Speaker: Because I think Sweeney at this point still thinks that Lucy, his wife, is still alive.
Speaker: And Mrs. Lovett is like, no, she poisoned herself.
Speaker: And she died.
Speaker: So they kind of, that's how they leave that.
Speaker: And Mrs. Lovett says, don't worry, I'm going to keep your secret that you're actually Benjamin Barker.
Speaker: It's all going to be fine.
Speaker: And we learn that Sweeney Todd is basically going to seek revenge on the judge because the judge was the one who basically stole his wife away from him and made him go to Australia.
Speaker: Anyway, remember that fancy sailor that we met on the ship?
Speaker: This kind of then moves to the plot of Antony, and we see Antony walking around London town, and he hears this very gorgeous singing from the window, Greenfinch and Linnetbird, very, very high.
Speaker: So yeah, so he falls in love with Joanna in the window.
Speaker: But then we meet a character, which is the judge and the beadle.
Speaker: And the judge, who is obviously this horrible guy who did all these awful things to Sweeney Todd,
Speaker: basically tells him to piss off and chases him away because he ultimately wants to be with really, really dark.
Speaker: He wants to now be with Joanna, even though he's a lot older.
Speaker: So that's kind of like the subplot that's happening there and it kind of establishes those two characters.
Speaker: Then we get transported to a London marketplace, classic.
Speaker: I'm gonna say it's Borough Market, just for kicks and giggles.
Speaker: It probably isn't, but anyway, kind of sets the scene.
Speaker: Then we meet Adolf Porelli, who is this kind of dramatic, kind of, I think Spanish.
Speaker: I think he's, I think he's pretending to be Spanish.
Speaker: I'm not really sure.
Speaker: It's like vague European man.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: And he is basically charming this audience, saying that he's got this miracle elixir that brings your hair back.
Speaker: And we meet this very young boy who is working as his assistant, called Tobias.
Speaker: I'm now going to transport you back to the barbershop, where we then meet the sailor, Anthony, and he tells Sweeney Todd that he wants to take Joanna and he wants to elope with her and he wants to save her, basically.
Speaker: And he says yes, because obviously Joanna's his daughter.
Speaker: And he says, yep, you can use the barbershop as a safe house.
Speaker: That's absolutely fine.
Speaker: He then leaves.
Speaker: Then, Signor Pirelli turns up and he's like, bloody hell.
Speaker: And Pirelli's like, but it's quite, it's actually quite funny.
Speaker: Pirelli then basically drops his accent.
Speaker: He's like, I'm not actually Pirelli.
Speaker: My name's Daniel O'Higgins.
Speaker: And he's like, okay.
Speaker: And he then basically is like, I know who you are.
Speaker: You're Benjamin Barker.
Speaker: And basically, it turns out that this guy used to be the assistant of Benjamin Barker and he recognizes him.
Speaker: Sweeney Todd obviously then panics and is like bloody hell, this is gonna completely screw up my whole plan.
Speaker: So then he kills him.
Speaker: So after he kills him, Mrs. Lovett takes the small little, this is a very important piece of information, Mrs. Lovett takes the small coin purse from Mr. Pirelli, you need to remember that, remember that for later, and Todd basically is trying to plan on how to get rid of this body.
Speaker: all of a sudden, Mrs. Lovett is like, hang on a minute, I'm doing terrible for business, why don't we use this body for something else?
Speaker: And he's like, oh, okay.
Speaker: And she's like, I think that you should use this body for me to make pies.
Speaker: And he's like, okay.
Speaker: Then...
Speaker: His person that he wants to show up, which is the judge, the judge finally shows up to his establishment and he wants to get a shave and he's like, brilliant, I'm now going to finally kill him.
Speaker: They come down, they have the whole kind of conversation about pretty women, it's a bit of a creepy song.
Speaker: And then all of a sudden, Anthony, the sailor, shows up and he's like, I'm going to steal Joanna.
Speaker: And he's like, bloody hell.
Speaker: And the judge is like, no, you're not.
Speaker: And the judge storms off.
Speaker: And Sweeney Todd's like, what the fuck?
Speaker: I mean, I literally had him and now I can't kill him.
Speaker: And then Mrs. Lovett comes up.
Speaker: He's like, what's going on?
Speaker: What's all the commotion?
Speaker: She's like, calm down, Sweeney.
Speaker: We've got time.
Speaker: We've got time.
Speaker: We'll find another way to get him back.
Speaker: And then they basically establish that what they're going to do is they're going to set up a barbershop above the pie shop where they're going to murder people.
Speaker: Because he also, Sweeney Todd is basically, at this point, he's like, everyone in London is full of shit and everyone deserves to die.
Speaker: And he basically establishes that he's going to set up this barbershop chair.
Speaker: that retracts backwards and she can then use the bodies to make meat pies and he can basically get his revenge.
Speaker: End of act one.
Speaker: So that is a lot.
Speaker: I know people at home are probably like Flo, that's a lot to take on.
Speaker: But those are basically all the main characters that we've established.
Speaker: opening act two dun dun dun so opening of act two a couple of months later mrs lovett's pie shop is an absolute boom of a success everyone loves her pie we then learn that joanna who basically uh so so after the judge finds out that joanna wants to run away to fall in love with anthony the judge gets really upset and he takes her to a lunatic asylum and is basically like
Speaker: until you realise how good you've got it, I'm going to keep you here.
Speaker: So she's locked away.
Speaker: And Anthony finds her and is basically like, I'll steal you.
Speaker: He has a whole moment again where he sings about Joanna as like, I'll save you, basically.
Speaker: And Todd gives him hair shavings from the barbershop.
Speaker: And it's like, go in as a wig maker.
Speaker: Go in as disguised as a wig maker to this asylum and see if you can save her that way.
Speaker: So Sweeney Todd has just sent Anthony to the asylum with these bits of hair disguised as a wig maker.
Speaker: But what Sweeney also does is he sends a letter to the judge telling him of the plan that Anthony is doing to save Joanna in order to get the judge back to the barbershop, basically to kill him.
Speaker: Meanwhile, Tobias, who's working at the pie shop, he discovers a finger or a fingernail or something in the pie.
Speaker: And he obviously is like, oh, my God, freaks out, runs to Mrs. Lovett, who's kind of become like his mum figure now.
Speaker: And they have a whole moment where he's like, I think there's something darker going on with Mr. Todd.
Speaker: And obviously, because Mrs. Lovett's in on it, she's like, there's nothing going on.
Speaker: And then she's like, look, here's a shiny new coin.
Speaker: Why don't you go get yourself something nice?
Speaker: And he's like, hang on a minute.
Speaker: That's Senor Pirelli's purse.
Speaker: See, this is why I said listen to earlier.
Speaker: So the purse comes back and he's like, oh my God, that proves it.
Speaker: And then she's like, no, no, no, no.
Speaker: This is nothing.
Speaker: You need to calm down.
Speaker: Obviously at that point, Mrs. Lovett's like, damn it.
Speaker: He knows.
Speaker: He knows what we're up to.
Speaker: So she then tells Todd, like, we need to get rid of Tobias and
Speaker: because he's going to basically scarper the whole plan.
Speaker: But then Tobias flees to the sewers, so basically in hiding.
Speaker: Meanwhile, going back to the sexy sailor, Anthony arrives at the asylum to rescue Joanna, but then Joanna recognises him and exposes the whole plan.
Speaker: Anthony draws a pistol to save him and cannot bring himself to basically shoot the main lady in charge of the asylum, but then Joanna does instead, and then they flee, basically.
Speaker: The judge and the beadle get to the barbershop.
Speaker: The beadle goes up first, the beadle is then killed and Mrs. Lovett is basically distracting the judge.
Speaker: The judge then goes upstairs to be like, what's going on?
Speaker: And he starts having a shave and literally at the last minute, he's like, hang on a minute, you're Benjamin Barker?
Speaker: And he's like, I am!
Speaker: And then kills him.
Speaker: So he basically kills the beadle, kills the judge.
Speaker: It's all going great.
Speaker: We meet this beggar woman, right, in Act One.
Speaker: And she is, from the very beginning, is like, mischief, mischief.
Speaker: Like, she knows there's something dark going on in there.
Speaker: And she somehow gets into, like, the underground pie bit and confronts Sweeney and is like, I know what you're doing.
Speaker: I'm going to tell everyone.
Speaker: And basically to get rid of her, he kills her.
Speaker: um and then mrs kind of mrs lovett comes in is like we did it we did it we did it and then sweeney todd realizes that the woman the beggar woman that he's just killed is actually lucy and he turns to mrs lovett and is like what the hell this is my wife and
Speaker: And she's like, oh, no, no, no.
Speaker: Like, I told you, like, everything I told you was true.
Speaker: Like, she did poison herself.
Speaker: He's like, right, so you've been lying to me.
Speaker: They do a bit of a dance moment where he's like, oh, no, it's not going to be fine.
Speaker: He then chucks her into the fire and kills Mrs. Lovett.
Speaker: And then secretly Tobias has been watching the whole thing.
Speaker: And then Tobias kills Sweeney.
Speaker: And that's basically how everything ends.
Speaker: So it's a real plot and a half.
Speaker: And I know some people at home who have probably watched it and are like avid Sweeney Todd are probably like, you've missed out this really important bit.
Speaker: But it is a long story.
Speaker: And if I've even just slightly tantalized your taste buds, you should just go watch it because it's so good.
Speaker: It's brilliant.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: so moving on to the cast and creatives then um before we move on to my personal hero godfather of modern day musical theater and most important defining person in my life obviously outside of my family Stephen Sondheim obviously outside my family
Speaker: yeah sorry love you mom and dad I just wanted to kind of touch on the show's book writer and director so the book for Sweeney Todd was written by Hugh Callingham Wheeler Hugh Callingham Wheeler was born in 1912 and despite being born and raised in the UK he actually lived in the US from 1934 all the way up until his death in 1987 and
Speaker: And he only died eight years after Sweeney Todd debuted.
Speaker: So it was quite like a later in life.
Speaker: He was working right up until he died.
Speaker: In addition to being an incredible musical book writer, he was also a novelist, screenwriter, playwright and poet and wrote many successful mystery novels under some very fun kind of pen names.
Speaker: So he had Patrick Quentin.
Speaker: Q Patrick so clearly the inverse of that and then Jonathan Stagg which I just think is a really great name for a mystery eraser
Speaker: He wrote the books for many of Broadway's most successful shows, including Candide, A Little Night Music, also by Sondheim, and the 1980 production of Meet Me in St.
Speaker: Louis, Louis, who knows?
Speaker: It's Louis.
Speaker: He won the Tony Award and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Book of a Musical in 1973 and 1974 for A Little Night Music and Candide, and then won both again in 1979 for his book for Sweeney Todd.
Speaker: So he's kind of, the guy was smashing it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: He's also, I think this is so interesting, he is credited as a research consultant for the 1972 film adaption of Cabaret.
Speaker: And some sources kind of cite him that he was basically like the co-writer alongside Jay Allen of the kind of the screenplay.
Speaker: But it's kind of not official.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But research consultant is really interesting.
Speaker: So he must have, I don't know, he must have done a few drafts, I reckon, of the screenplay.
Speaker: So the original 1979 production was directed by iconic Broadway producer and director Hal Prince.
Speaker: If you know musicals, you know Hal Prince.
Speaker: He basically produced or directed every single successful show from about 1940 all the way through.
Speaker: I think the last show that he directed was in 2015, only four years before he died.
Speaker: So again, he was putting in a shift.
Speaker: um harold smith prince was born in 1928 to a german jewish middle class family in new york and after attending the university of pennsylvania and a two-year stint in the u.s army he began his theater career as an assistant stage manager to producer and director george abbott so he first kind of dabbled in producing this was his first producing gig fyi co-producing gig the pajama game and
Speaker: which won the 1955 Tony Award for Best Musical and his career just kind of shot off from there.
Speaker: So it would take too much to go through every single show that Hal Prince worked on because he basically worked on it all.
Speaker: But throughout his kind of long and expansive career,
Speaker: He won a whopping 21 Tony Awards, including eight for directing, eight for producing the year's best musical, two as best producer of a musical, and three kind of special awards.
Speaker: His credits include producing the musicals The Pajama Game, Damn Yankees, West Side Story, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Fiddler on the Roof and Side by Side, and directing, and in most cases also producing She Loves Me, Cabaret, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Candide, Pacific Overtures, Evita, Merrily We Roll Along,
Speaker: Phantom of the Opera, Kiss of the Spider-Woman, and the Seminole Parade.
Speaker: What the hell?
Speaker: Just a few.
Speaker: What the hell?
Speaker: That is literally like all my musical theatre books, like in one bookshelf, he's done.
Speaker: Like what the hell?
Speaker: Oh my god.
Speaker: Hal Prince is the defining voice in theatre of the musical theatre of the last 100 years.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So his work is renowned for elevating musical theatre as an art form and bringing really serious subject matter into the genre through his work.
Speaker: So this is a really great quote from composer and lyricist Jason Robert Brown.
Speaker: And he said, more than anything else, when I think about Hal, I think about his belief in thesir.
Speaker: He believed in what it could do.
Speaker: He thought a lot about the world and the political systems and emotional support systems in it.
Speaker: He was very much a political artist.
Speaker: On the day that he died, 16th of December 2019, all the marquee lights in Broadway's theatres were dimmed to pay honour to him.
Speaker: And really interestingly, he frequented with Sondheim for years.
Speaker: They had a 20-year gap, I think after the failure of Merrily, where they kind of, they broke apart, but they still remained friends.
Speaker: But he basically produced and directed all of Sondheim's shows up until then.
Speaker: And when Sondheim originally brought him Sweeney Todd to direct, Hal wasn't interested.
Speaker: He said that the structure wasn't experimental enough.
Speaker: But the thing that kind of made him come on board was when he tapped into what he believed the fundamental metaphor of the show was.
Speaker: And that was a critique of the Industrial Revolution and its impact on working class men.
Speaker: So Sondheim is quoted as saying, Hal's metaphor is that the factory turns out Sweeney Todd's.
Speaker: It turns out soulless, defeated, hopeless people.
Speaker: That's what the play is about to him.
Speaker: Sweeney Todd is a product of that age.
Speaker: But really interestingly, Sondheim himself actually disagreed with this.
Speaker: And he said, I think it's not.
Speaker: Sweeney Todd is a man bent on personal revenge the way that we all are in one way or another.
Speaker: And it has nothing to do with the time that he lived in as far as I'm concerned.
Speaker: It's these two juxtaposing drivers within the original show that made it a success.
Speaker: Sondheim himself just sees the personal story.
Speaker: He just sees the emotion, the driver for revenge.
Speaker: And Hal Prince sees the kind of wider political, cultural context of the times.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: We arrive properly for the very first time on this podcast to Mr. Stephen Joshua Sondheim.
Speaker: To do proper justice to the man who changed the trajectory of modern day musical theatre and to a degree my own life, we want to dedicate a full episode to him, deep diving on his life and legacy.
Speaker: So please watch out for our Sondheim Odyssey in 2024.
Speaker: But for now, I'm just going to give you a whistle stop tour of the man who means so much to all of us.
Speaker: Stephen Joshua Sondheim was born on March 22nd, 1930 to Etta Janet and Herbert Sondheim in the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
Speaker: Both of Sondheim's parents were Jewish and worked in the fashion industry.
Speaker: His father was a manufacturer and his mother was the dress designer.
Speaker: Sondheim reportedly had a terrible relationship with his mother, who he said was psychologically abusive to him after she divorced his father.
Speaker: They would go on to become estranged and he did not go to her funeral when she died.
Speaker: After the divorce, he moved to Pennsylvania to a place called Bucks County.
Speaker: And this is where he would go on to meet his neighbour, Oscar Hammerstein II, the famed lyricist and playwright, after befriending his son, James.
Speaker: So it's described that Hammerstein essentially became Sondheim's de facto surrogate father and would prompt his interest in musical theatre.
Speaker: There's a really gorgeous quote from Sondheim who absolutely revered Hammerstein.
Speaker: He used to joke that if Jamie's dad has been a plumber, he would have spent his own life fixing pipes.
Speaker: And if it didn't really matter what Hammerstein did, he just loved him so much that he would have followed him anywhere.
Speaker: Oh, that's really sweet.
Speaker: Isn't that just so lovely?
Speaker: I love that sometime the famous plumber.
Speaker: I know, and he probably would have been so good at that as well.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Sondheim wrote his first musical by George, aged 16, and asked Hammerstein to review it without telling him that he wrote it.
Speaker: Hammerstein said it was the worst thing that he'd ever seen and said, but if you want to know why it's terrible, I'll tell you.
Speaker: Hammerstein then took the afternoon to go through all the issues in the musical with Sondheim and Sondheim said, in that afternoon, I learned more about songwriting and musical theatre than most people learn in a lifetime.
Speaker: Sondheim would go on to write four more musicals for Hammerstein to review over the course of five years.
Speaker: Hammerstein gave him specific conditions for each musical.
Speaker: He said, write one based on a play that you admire, write one based on a play that you liked but you think is flawed, write one based on an existing novel or short story that's not previously been dramatised, and then write an original.
Speaker: Through the development of these shows, none of which were ever produced, Hammerstein continued to mentor Sondheim in the art of musical theater.
Speaker: They remained lifelong friends and before Hammerstein died in 1960, he gifted Sondheim a portrait of himself and inscribed it, For Stevie, my friend and my teacher.
Speaker: I'm just going to pause to let everyone cry there.
Speaker: Oh my god.
Speaker: That is so sweet.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: That picture must be worth a fortune as well.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It must just be crazy.
Speaker: I hope it's worth millions.
Speaker: Oh my God.
Speaker: Oh, I hope Jamie's got it.
Speaker: Jamie Hammerstein, if he's still alive, I hope he's got it.
Speaker: Sondheim studied music under Robert Barrow at Williams College, Massachusetts.
Speaker: He loved Barrow and he said later of his choice to study under him.
Speaker: I just wanted to study composition theory and harmony without the attendant musicology that comes in graduate school.
Speaker: But I knew I wanted to write for the theatre, so I wanted someone who did not disdain
Speaker: musical theater which I just think is such an interesting quote because like one of my big things is I think it tends to happen a lot I would say with musical theater performer boys where they actually just don't like musical theater that much they're just good at it and there's like a disdain for the art form so I just even like at that time that sometimes like no I want someone who loves this as much as I do not who's just kind of good at it and knows that it's popular
Speaker: After graduating magna cum laude, Sondheim lived with his father for a few years, struggling to get by as a TV writer for the 50s show Topper.
Speaker: But his big break would come when he wrote lyrics for the well-desuccesful West Side Story in 1957 and Gypsy in 1959.
Speaker: Through long-time partnerships with producer-director Harold Prince and book writer James Lapine, Sondheim would go on to write both lyrics and music for his shows, dominating Broadway with his major successes.
Speaker: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Sweeney Todd, Merrily We Roll Along, Sunday in the Park with George and Into the Woods, to name a few.
Speaker: Sondheim became synonymous with success.
Speaker: His music was soaring and ambitious, his lyrics nuanced, reverent and full of wit.
Speaker: His characters became an actor's dream, emotionally complex, fully realised and more than a little difficult to sing.
Speaker: Over the course of his incredibly long career, Sondheim won eight Tony Awards, an Academy Award, eight Grammy Awards, an Olivier Award and the Pulitzer Prize and six of his works were adapted to film.
Speaker: As I said, it's completely impossible within a short section of one episode of our podcast to go through the history and immense impact of Stephen Joshua Sondheim, which is why we're going to dedicate a full episode to him this year.
Speaker: But Charles McNulty summed up wonderfully in his LA Times obituary, The Week That Sondheim Died.
Speaker: Sondheim deserves a spot on Playwriting's Mount Rushmore, where his contribution to the theatre is as significant from a literary point of view as it is from a musical one.
Speaker: In truth, you can't separate the words from the notes in his scores any more than you can pry apart form from the content in his shows.
Speaker: It is no exaggeration to say that Sondheim changed the nature of theatrical storytelling.
Speaker: Through his lyrical cleverness and openness to dramatic invention, through his canny balancing of romanticism and anti-romanticism, he carved out a space for ambivalence in a popular art form that leaned heavily on sentimental simplicity.
Speaker: I know.
Speaker: Steve.
Speaker: Steve.
Speaker: So, as we've mentioned, Sweeney Todd was a monumental success and is widely regarded in the musical theatre world as sometimes most realised, most successful work.
Speaker: It proved an even bigger hit with audiences and has been revived, as Casey said, a whopping three times on Broadway and on the West End.
Speaker: With these revivals and the national tours that it spawned,
Speaker: Numerous Broadway West End revered musical theatre alumni have played the iconic roles of Sweeney Todd, Mrs. Lovett, Antoni, Joanna, Judge Turpin and Tobias.
Speaker: So I'm just going to run through some famous casts for you.
Speaker: We've heard a few of these names before.
Speaker: So for Sweeney Todd, obviously we have Len Carreux.
Speaker: Bob Gunton, who played in Shawshank Redemption, the guy that runs the prison.
Speaker: We have Alan Armstrong, who, of course, was made famous because he originated the role of Tenardier.
Speaker: We have Michael Ball.
Speaker: Michael Ball.
Speaker: and we have Josh, me too, also we have Josh Groban.
Speaker: For Mrs Lovett we have Angela Lansbury, incomparable Angela Lansbury and really interestingly when she was first approached by the role because Sondheim wrote it with her in mind she was like yeah I'm a star like that's the second billing
Speaker: Like, sorry, I'm a star.
Speaker: It's not, what did she say?
Speaker: She said, it's not Mrs. Lovett, the demon bar for the street.
Speaker: And then eventually she was kind of turned around by how kind of amazing the songs were and the character.
Speaker: We have Beth Bowler, who also played Mrs. Lovett.
Speaker: And she is, if you remember Orange is the New Black, she played the nun, the nun that was in prison.
Speaker: Oh, really?
Speaker: Oh, she did.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh my god, that's crazy.
Speaker: There's a whole slew of famous stars who played Mrs. Levitt.
Speaker: We also have Christine Berinsky, Patti LuPone, of course, Imelda Staunton and Anneli Ashford.
Speaker: Oh my god, I love Christine Berinsky.
Speaker: What a good role for her.
Speaker: I never knew that.
Speaker: What production was she in?
Speaker: So she was in the 2002 Kennedy Center's production of Sweeney Todd.
Speaker: Oh.
Speaker: Oh my gosh.
Speaker: Love Christine.
Speaker: Obviously for Anthony Hope, we have Victor Garber, who my note here just says hottest man alive.
Speaker: Hugh Pinero as well who would go on to kind of have major success as Phantom, Adrian Lester, Matt Doyle and more recently Jordan Fisher of Hamilton fame, Joanna Barker, Sarah Rice originated the role, Betsy Joslin had a turn and then Lauren Molina who's kind of quite famous for being in the rock band The Skiddies.
Speaker: For Judge Turpin had Edmund Lindek, Dennis Quilley, Walter Charles
Speaker: and then John Bow who some people may know because he is like he's been on I think he had like a 10 year stint on Emmerdale a 20 year stint on Coronation Street but if you are a Prime Suspect fan he is like one of the famous antagonists in series two George Marlowe who was the serial killer.
Speaker: If anyone's not seen Prime Suspect
Speaker: Helen Mirren is like I think she was like 40 and she plays like this like chief superintendent who is basically she solves crime but it's just great because she like just has sex with a bunch of people and smokes a bunch of cigarettes and solves crimes excellent
Speaker: And then for Tobias Rag, we had Ken Jennings, Adrian Lewis Morgan, who is a UK actor and he's actually the longest serving cast member on the daytime soap, Doctors.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: And then, of course, Gaten Matarazzo from Stranger Things.
Speaker: So I'm just going to talk a little bit about the incredibly popular 2007 film adaption.
Speaker: So the film adaption was, of course, directed by the incomparable.
Speaker: I'm using that word a lot, but there's just so many people involved in Sweeney Todd that are incomparable.
Speaker: Goth hero Tim Burton with a screenplay by John Logan.
Speaker: And really interestingly, I know that I think it was Casey said earlier that the 2005 revival might have spurred on the 2007 film and it kind of did.
Speaker: But Burton actually saw the original West End production of Sweeney Todd in 1980 in London.
Speaker: and just became absolutely obsessed with it at the time he wasn't uh he was at university but he wasn't didn't know he was gonna be a filmmaker didn't he know he was gonna have a career in the arts and he said he just absolutely never seen anything like it on stage and despite not being a big musical fan he was struck by its cinematic qualities and was dazzled by both the music and its sense of the macabre
Speaker: he actually went to see it three times in a row so he watched it the first night and then he went another three times because he was just so obsessed with it he actually spoke with Sondheim in the late 1980s to discuss creating a film adaption of the show but then kind of became busy with other projects
Speaker: So then in 2003, really famous film director, Sam Mendes, who people might know from American Beauty or 1917, he approached Sondheim and said, why don't I really want to adapt this?
Speaker: Why don't you write the screenplay?
Speaker: And Sondheim just turned it down.
Speaker: I think he maybe wasn't that interested in writing screenplays.
Speaker: Mendes went with another writer John Logan who wrote Gladiator but then Mendes left the project in 2005 to work on another film called Jarhead.
Speaker: Never heard of that in my life so wrong move there baby.
Speaker: He left it?
Speaker: Yeah he left it and the producers were like let's bring in Burton let's bring in Burton.
Speaker: So Burton was like oh my god like it's his life's dream.
Speaker: And Burton worked on the screenplay with Logan.
Speaker: So obviously the musical has a really long running time.
Speaker: It's about three and a half hours.
Speaker: And they decided to cut that down by cutting a lot of the chorus numbers signed by the people of London and kind of shorten other songs.
Speaker: But Sondheim was consulted throughout and he was sent versions of each shortened song to approve it.
Speaker: Sondheim himself was actually really in favor of cutting down the music in favor of pacing because he was reportedly not a fan of kind of musicals movie adaptions, which is just another reason why I think me and him would be best friends.
Speaker: Because I'm the same.
Speaker: So he was like, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: It's a different beast.
Speaker: Putting a musical on film, it has to the pacing has to be kept up.
Speaker: And Burton was
Speaker: took a bit of a gamble and he cut the opening number of the ballad of Sweeney Todd and apparently said why have a chorus singing about attending the tale of Sweeney Todd when you could just go ahead and attend it which I just think is really really interesting
Speaker: In casting Sweeney, Burton and his producers took what they called a massive gamble in casting Johnny Depp because he had had no previous singing experience.
Speaker: Depp took loads of singing lessons to prepare and although his voice is not particularly robust or powerful, critics remarked at the time that his pitch, phrasing and interpretation of sometimes lyrics and music was spot on and his fragile tone actually gave credence to Todd's kind of murderous heartbreak.
Speaker: The film also stars Burton's partner at the time, Helena Bonham Carter as Mrs. Lovett, Alan Rickman as George Turpin, Sasha Baron Cohen as Pirelli, Jamie Campbell-Bower as Anthony Hope, Laura Michelle Kelly as The Beggar Woman, Jane Wisner as Joanna, Ed Sanders as Tobias, and Timothy Spohn as Beadle Bamford, which is just perfect casting.
Speaker: It premiered in December 2007 in the US and was released in the UK in 2008.
Speaker: It received critical acclaim for Burton's direction, the performances of the ensemble cast and its adaption from the original musical.
Speaker: It made a whopping 153 million against a budget of 50 million and has gone on to be regarded as one of the greatest film musical adaptions of all time.
Speaker: It was nominated for three Academy Awards.
Speaker: So Johnny Depp was nominated for Best Actor and then it was nominated for Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design winning Best Art Direction.
Speaker: Now this is topical, ladies.
Speaker: What I found really interesting when researching this was the film's marketing strategy is
Speaker: Basically, they did what the recent Mean Girls musical did, and they just cut all of the music from the trailer.
Speaker: So they didn't include much of the score or any of the music.
Speaker: And actually what happened was because the trailer didn't really allude to the fact that it was a musical, loads of film goers in the UK went not understanding it was a musical, and then many walked out of the film.
Speaker: Some even complained to the Advertisement Standards Authority and said that it was kind of misleading.
Speaker: What?
Speaker: Were you walked out?
Speaker: Walked out, yeah.
Speaker: Oh my god.
Speaker: There's so many people though that are like, I mean, like, oh, it's a musical.
Speaker: I'm not, like, the whole thing with Mean Girls is that apparently people have been going to it as well.
Speaker: And like, as soon as they start singing, they're like, oh great, it's a musical.
Speaker: And I'm like, why wouldn't you just welcome it with open arms?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because it comes back to this annoying thing that I feel like I have to fight every day of my life about.
Speaker: People's opinion of musicals is that they're cringe and embarrassing and not as highbrow as other art forms, which is just like, all right, if you don't like musicals, that's absolutely fine, but it's incredibly rude to basically say that it's not as highbrow as other stuff.
Speaker: And what really annoys me about musicals is that they're held to this standard that other things aren't held to.
Speaker: So the amount of people that I speak to that are like,
Speaker: oh yeah, I don't like musicals.
Speaker: Like, oh God, have you ever seen Harry's Where It's So Bad?
Speaker: And you're like, yeah, I don't watch a bad film and then say all film is bad.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: The thing is though, is that there's so many different types of musicals and I feel like, I feel like, okay, so prime example, my sister's husband was not in that camping, like musicals are terrible, but he was a bit like, I'm not really that bothered.
Speaker: He was like, I'd much rather go see a movie.
Speaker: He then went to go see Les Mis with my sister and
Speaker: And he is the biggest fan of Les Mis now.
Speaker: And ever since then, like, I love musical theatre.
Speaker: Like, he literally has a t-shirt with 24601 on.
Speaker: Like, he loves it.
Speaker: So it's like, I feel like every single person out there just needs to see a musical that
Speaker: that suits them.
Speaker: So whether it's Sweeney Todd, maybe it's Hairspray, maybe it's A Little Night Music.
Speaker: Like, there is a musical out there for everyone.
Speaker: And yeah, okay, yeah, there are, like, there are more kind of cheesy ones where you're a bit like, oh, God, it's very empty.
Speaker: But then there are also movies that you watch that are very, like, this is very cheesy, this is very odd.
Speaker: But then there are musicals out there where you're like, oh, my God, this hits so deep.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: If there was ever going to be anything that would challenge that sort of, oh, it's all cheesy, like nonsense, then Sweeney Todd would be the one that would challenge that sort of theory.
Speaker: So, yeah.
Speaker: And do you know what's so funny as well?
Speaker: Les Mis seems to be the big one for a lot of men that previously have disdain for musicals.
Speaker: A lot of men I know are like, oh, I hate musicals.
Speaker: And then they watch Les Mis and they just love Les Mis.
Speaker: It's like a really funny thing.
Speaker: I don't know what it is, but yeah.
Speaker: They just love it.
Speaker: So we've touched upon that Sondheim apparently wasn't thrilled about the movie adaptation at first.
Speaker: And after Tim Burton pleaded with him, he agreed if he could maintain casting decisions.
Speaker: So originally Sondheim dismissed the casting of Johnny Depp, fearing he would be too sort of rock orientated and that his voice wouldn't quite suit it.
Speaker: And then Burton insisted and said that he would only make the movie with Depp in the role.
Speaker: So after several singing auditions and lessons and things sometime, then agreed, pleased with Depp's vocal progress.
Speaker: And he then went on to say in his book, Finishing the Hat, which I haven't read, but I do have, he states that the 2007 adaptation of Sweeney Todd is the only adaptation of one of his works for the screen that he actually approves of.
Speaker: Yeah, I think that's because
Speaker: one like Burton that was like his life's work and two I think he had such respect for Sondheim like consulting him throughout the process with like the songs being cut down and kind of obviously explaining why they were doing that like how they were transferring it over to film and keeping up with the pacing like I think he had probably had such a hand in that as well that he probably felt like it was yeah a bit of his own yeah um
Speaker: And then obviously, apparently they had worries about casting Helena Bonham Carter too because of nepotism.
Speaker: So apparently she like daily and like would send Sontime singing videos in order for her to kind of gain approval for the role.
Speaker: And then he eventually said, yeah.
Speaker: which a lot of people don't like her in that role, but I think she was brilliant.
Speaker: I love her.
Speaker: Me too.
Speaker: I love her.
Speaker: But also I feel like Johnny Depp and her and Bo Carter just go together.
Speaker: Like they always, I swear they've been cast before together.
Speaker: They do.
Speaker: It's kind of like he'll only work with those two actors.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah, basically.
Speaker: With Helena Bonham Carter, like she cannot sing well.
Speaker: But she is very similar to Dep that she can interpret Sondheim very well.
Speaker: And that's like, that's what matters more, I would say, especially for the roles that she takes on.
Speaker: Like, like she, like it's fine for Mrs. Lovett not really to be able to sing as long as you're getting that pacing right.
Speaker: And that wit and that interpretation.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: She's got like the grittiness, like it doesn't actually quite matter if she's not that melodic.
Speaker: And then it's kind of juxtaposition from Joanna as well.
Speaker: So.
Speaker: It's a bit like when Judi Dench sang Send in the Clowns.
Speaker: You're like, well, it's Judi Dench.
Speaker: I don't really care.
Speaker: She's still a mate.
Speaker: And she did it.
Speaker: I mean, that is just like, she's phenomenal.
Speaker: But people are like, she can't really sing.
Speaker: But I'm like, it's Judi Dench.
Speaker: Moment of respect, please.
Speaker: Another little fun fact that I've seen today, which I don't know, you might not find this interesting, but I did, is that Sondheim had said that despite Judge Turpin being a horrible person who does terrible things, it's actually Mrs. Lovett who is the musical's true villain, largely because she's entirely self-serving to a sociopathic degree.
Speaker: At the very least, Turpin realises what he's done to Lucy and to Joanna, and his feelings for Joanna are wrong.
Speaker: he also genuinely believes that any form of sexual feeling is evil, so he has something of a Freudian excuse, Sondheim said.
Speaker: But Mrs. Lovett doesn't have any of that baggage or self-awareness.
Speaker: I don't know why I was... Awareness?
Speaker: Self-awareness.
Speaker: Awareness.
Speaker: Doesn't have any of that baggage or self-awareness, and is thus more reprehensible.
Speaker: I kind of get that because...
Speaker: at the very beginning, obviously, she lies, and it's like, you know, Lucy's dead, like, she poisoned herself, she's dead, but she definitely knows that that beggar woman is definitely Lucy, and also, she's the one that plants the seed of, it seems an awful waste, it seems a downright shame that these bodies are going to use.
Speaker: So it's like, she is very evil, and then, well, Johnny Depp, oops, then, Swingy Todd is obviously then like,
Speaker: oh yeah, that's a really good idea.
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, I kind of agree in that her intentions are more wholly selfish in the terms of, like, she just wants to be with Sweeney.
Speaker: So she does all these bad things.
Speaker: But I'm also like, well, is it, like, just a thing of being like, the woman's the villain.
Speaker: It's not actually all these men around her.
Speaker: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker: I kind of think that's just quite classic, like, oh, yeah, it's her fault, actually.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I also do think the judge is really creepy.
Speaker: The judge is so creepy.
Speaker: I'm sorry.
Speaker: Like, he knew what he was doing.
Speaker: Yeah, but that's what he's saying is that he realises that he's being creepy.
Speaker: Like, he is absolutely a villain.
Speaker: But I think the whole point... I think the whole point... Literally.
Speaker: If you realise you're being creepy, why don't you stop?
Speaker: I think the...
Speaker: The whole point is that they're all villains, but she is entirely self-serving in the fact that she has the power to sort of reunite a family.
Speaker: But she's like, well, no, I think Mr. Todd is a dishy.
Speaker: I'm going to take him for myself.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I mean, obviously, like her, she has a more selfish intentions.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Because it's just like, oh, I want my business to do well.
Speaker: I mean, she is on the brink of living in poverty.
Speaker: So that is a bit of a good justification, I guess.
Speaker: Not a good one, but it's a justification.
Speaker: And obviously she's lonely and she wants to be with him.
Speaker: And obviously Sweeney, we kind of, the whole thing is that you kind of were meant to excuse it because he's just had such a terrible backstory and it's kind of justified.
Speaker: Judge Turfan though.
Speaker: Absolutely not.
Speaker: I don't agree with that.
Speaker: He's a creep.
Speaker: Yeah, he's absolutely evil.
Speaker: He sent Sweeney away, drove his wife to madness.
Speaker: He is a terrible human being.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So I thought it was interesting that sometime that was his opinion.
Speaker: I also think the beetle is also really creepy as well.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: They're both just awful.
Speaker: They're awful, awful, awful.
Speaker: But to be fair, at least Mrs. Lovett is kind of nice to Toby until she's like, yeah, let's kill him.
Speaker: I think that, you know, obviously up until then, Toby has been like abused by Pirelli and has like lived this awful life.
Speaker: Cause I think he mentions that he used to work in like the labor house or something.
Speaker: So there is that like sweeter side to her, but then it all gets a bit too crazy.
Speaker: Now this next bit I'm so excited about because we have the chance to do our very own fantasy casting using our Mega Mix, Mega Switch casting.
Speaker: Now this is the part of the show, if you're not already aware, where Rosa will give us a cast from any random show or production and we get the chance to cast them in Sweeney Todd.
Speaker: So without further ado, who do we have in today, Rosa?
Speaker: All right, girls.
Speaker: So this episode, I want you to cast the characters of Sweeney Todd using the cast of another Tim Burton classic, the movie Beetlejuice.
Speaker: So as a quick reminder for our audiences, the cast of Beetlejuice includes Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis.
Speaker: I love Geena Davis.
Speaker: She's my girl crush.
Speaker: Me too.
Speaker: as Barbara and Adam Maitland, who are the young couple who die and then become ghosts residing in their country home.
Speaker: Geoffrey Jones and the amazing Catherine O'Hara as Delia and Charles Dietz, the father and stepmother of Lydia Dietz, who's played by Winona Ryder.
Speaker: And they're the family who move into the Maitlands' home and become victims of the haunting.
Speaker: We have Sylvia Sidney as Juno, the Maitlands' afterlife caseworker.
Speaker: And then Michael Keaton, maybe, as Beetlejuice, the evil entity that Lydia releases.
Speaker: So we've got Sweeney, we've got Mrs. Lovett, we've got Anthony, Joanna, Judge Turpin and Tobias Rag.
Speaker: Oh wait, Kirsten, make a mix, make a switch.
Speaker: Okay, so straight away I'm going to put it out there.
Speaker: I want Catherine O'Hara to be Mrs. Lovett.
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: I was going to throw that one out there as well.
Speaker: Especially Catherine O'Hara now.
Speaker: Catherine O'Hara now would absolutely eat that roll up.
Speaker: And I would be like, Sweeney, I would just love to see her do.
Speaker: Sweeney.
Speaker: We must get everybody to eat these pies.
Speaker: Her little priest would be great.
Speaker: It's priest.
Speaker: Priest?
Speaker: I would love that.
Speaker: Um...
Speaker: I kind of want to see Winona Ryder as... Ah, I want to see her as Lucy.
Speaker: I want to see her as the beggar woman.
Speaker: I know she's a slightly smaller part, but I think she would be really good as that part.
Speaker: I actually am going to throw a little thing in here.
Speaker: I think I want to see young Winona Ryder as Joanna, slightly older Winona Ryder as Lucy.
Speaker: Yeah, I basically want both of them.
Speaker: Well, then where are we putting Gina Davis?
Speaker: Oh, Gina Davis.
Speaker: We can't not put her in.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Okay, right, so Gina Davis will be... I love that we're like, okay, this is real casting.
Speaker: Gina Davis will be Lucy, and then Winona Ryder will be Joanna.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Okay, yeah.
Speaker: I can see that.
Speaker: I'm going to say that young Alec Baldwin, young Alec Baldwin, I just want to put that in there, would probably be quite good as...
Speaker: as Anthony Holt.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: That was my, that was literally what I was about to say.
Speaker: Yeah, definitely.
Speaker: Like, like, literally, like, Alec Baldwin in Beetlejuice, that sort of like, yeah, he was quite twinkie, wasn't he?
Speaker: That's so funny.
Speaker: I think it just makes sense to put Michael Keaton as Sweeney, right?
Speaker: Yeah, 100%.
Speaker: I mean, this is very easy to cast.
Speaker: This is like, this is too easy.
Speaker: And then I think Geoffrey Jones should be, I think he could either be the Beatle or the judge.
Speaker: One of those two.
Speaker: I would put him, I would put him as the judge.
Speaker: As a judge.
Speaker: Just because he is actually a creep in real life.
Speaker: Yeah, that is very true actually.
Speaker: Yeah, so fits the role rather well.
Speaker: Oh God.
Speaker: And then, oh, do you know who'd be great?
Speaker: I can't remember the actor's name, but the guy who plays Otho as the Beatle.
Speaker: And Glenn Shaddix.
Speaker: Yes, that's really good.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And then we do need, guys, we needed Tobias.
Speaker: And Pirelli, don't we?
Speaker: Oh, I mean, we could do, actually, we could do a gender swap for Tobias.
Speaker: You know, Jane Busterfield.
Speaker: Yes, the, like, um... The wee girl.
Speaker: Who keeps coming to the house to, like, try to get them to sell it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay, yeah, so that's... She's played by a woman called Rachel Middleman, which is a great name.
Speaker: Middleman.
Speaker: And then I think we could actually have Glenn Chaddick's double cast as Pirelli.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: We have Michael Keaton as Sweeney Todd, Mrs. Lovett, played by Catherine O'Hara, Alec Baldwin taking on the role of Anthony Hope, Winona Ryder playing Joanna Barker, Geoffrey Jones as Judge Turpin, Rachel Mittelman as Tobias Rag, Gina Davis as Lucy slash the Beggar Women, and then Glenn Chaddick's double cast as the Beidle and Bideli.
Speaker: I think that's pretty good.
Speaker: I go see that production.
Speaker: Burton, get on it, Bibbs.
Speaker: Let's see it.
Speaker: all right everyone thank you so much for joining us on this epic journey across swainy child the dame and barbara flight straight we've really enjoyed um taking you through a little bit about sondheim how prince victorian obsession with true crime petty dreadfuls
Speaker: and our kind of shared love of Michael Keaton.
Speaker: It's been a pretty fantastic episode.
Speaker: We're really excited next month to bring you a bit more of a deep dive on the music.
Speaker: Watch out for that.
Speaker: I think it is going to be one of our hardest episodes yet, but it'll be really, really exciting.
Speaker: As always, please keep up with us on socials, engage with us, let us know what you want us to cover.
Speaker: And yeah, I think we're just so excited to bring 2024 season Sunday on the Pod to you this year.
Speaker: And just like that, we've been...
Speaker: Worst.
Speaker: Pies.
Speaker: In London.
Speaker: Bye.
Speaker: Bye.
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