Horrorshow Productions’ Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street opens in a haze of atmosphere so evocative that its echo in the final scene lands with a devastating clarity. It’s an inspired bookending — a reminder that, for all its grand guignol flourishes, Sweeney Todd is a story propelled by grief, exploitation, and the corrosive impetus of revenge. Director Jack Phoenix and associate director Justin Matthews have leaned into that truth to craft a big, bold production that is steeped in dread, yet punctuated by bleak humour.
Set in Victorian London, the musical follows the return of a barber named Benjamin Barker—now calling himself Sweeney Todd (Thomas Fournier)—who had his family destroyed, then was wrongfully exiled by the corrupt Judge Turpin (Nicholas Paolone). Reopening his shop above the struggling meat pie business of Mrs. Lovett (Mari MacDonald), Todd vows to kill the judge. When opportunities to do this slip through his grasp, he turns his rage to murdering clients … providing the canny Mrs. Lovett with a rich and regular source of filling for her suddenly popular pies. Intertwined are the parallel threads of Barker/Todd’s daughter Johanna (Michelle Chew), whom Turpin has made his ward and keeps locked away. Todd’s continuing quest for revenge and Johanna’s romance with a sailor Anthony (Nolan Rush) inexorably fuel the tragedy.
Top to bottom, the performers are well cast and vocally strong – and this is a confident, surehanded production. Fournier’s Todd is brooding and tightly coiled, his stillness more menacing than his outbursts. Finding nuance in the character’s grief and fury, he is more tormented, grieving husband and father than crazed murderer, and charts a believable descent without sacrificing vocal power. Opposite him, Mari MacDonald’s Mrs. Lovett is an absolute wonder—sharply drawn, irresistibly funny, and gorgeously voiced. Her comic timing is impeccable, and freshens familiar beats without ever softening the character’s ruthless pragmatism. Sure, she is neither as grimy nor dishevelled as you would expect. Instead, there’s a twinkle-eyed bounce to her – a slapstick spirit which she bakes right into the most macabre moments. And it’s impossible not to root for her as a savvy entrepreneur with ambitions and dreams (though, true, her product is cannibalism in a crust…). MacDonald’s interplay with Fournier gives the show its chaotic heartbeat: these are two wounded souls with radically divergent divergent sensibilities, colliding in a partnership that is both horrific and darkly compelling.
Paolone’s Judge Turpin has a wonderfully weaselly quality that underscores the character’s hypocrisy, while Kevin John Siazon as his henchman the Beadle embodies perfectly the pompous self-importance of a glorified errand boy. Meanwhile, Avi Petliar brings affecting sincerity and vocal warmth to actual errand boy and orphan Toby, grounding the show’s moral throughline and adding emotional weight to the production’s most vulnerable moments. In the directors’ vision, the wonderful full ensemble operate as a fluid extension of Toby’s fragmented memory: they add admirable dimension and kinetic energy, sometimes as Greek chorus and sometimes as the grinding machinery of the city. This choice deepens the psychological tension and lends the staging a fever dream-logic unease.
Meanwhile, Nolan Rush and Michelle Chew lend Anthony Hope and Johanna an earnestness and lyrical sweetness that counters at least some of the story’s darkness. And among the supporting cast, Olivia (Eun-Jung) Jon’s mysterious Beggar Woman and Janek Gonsalkorale’s Pirelli stand out for their strikingly different character work.
Overall, an emphasis on systemic corruption and cycles of violence threads through the show’s design, shaping everything from the claustrophobic and clever two-tier set to the grim, ever-watchful movement of the chorus. The ground level — flanked by the excellent orchestra — fluidly becomes Mrs. Lovett’s pie shop, her living room, and the street outside, allowing scenes to spill, dream-like, into one another. Above it, the upper level doubles as Johanna’s bedchamber and Todd’s barbershop, complete with the essential trick chair that dispatches victims down to Mrs. Lovett’s kitchen below. It’s an elegant, efficient design that supports both the humour and the horror of the piece.
And under Adam Rosenfeld’s music direction, the orchestra – onstage at left and right – delivers Sondheim’s operatic score with punch and polish. The production’s lighting, costuming, and choreography further echo the sense of a world shaped by corruption, memory, and the relentless machinery of violence. Connor Price-Kelleher’s lighting carves out a London of smoke, glare, and shadow, while Mai Luening’s choreography keeps the action taut, especially in moments requiring precision, violence, or rapid tonal shifts.
Horrorshow’s stripped-down staging proves definitively that scale is less important than specificity. The production embraces the grit and grease of industrial London without clutter, allowing character, music and movement to take centre stage. And the result is immersive in the best sense of the word: we’re far enough away to detect the patterns and map the descent , but close enough to feel the heat of the bakehouse and touch the razor’s edge of Todd’s spiralling obsession.
So do “attend the tale of Sweeney Todd” at the Alumnae Theatre. You’ll find spectacle and slow ache in this sharply tuned revival that finds freshness in a classic tale. Punching well above their weight, Horrorshow Productions has delivered a muscular, thoughtful, and wickedly entertaining interpretation that is one of the best I can recall ever seeing. It’s whetted my appetite for what new dark cleverness this company may be cooking up next.
Horrorshow Productions’ Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street runs until December 14, 2025 at Alumnae Theatre. Tickets are available at eventbrite.com.
© Arpita Ghosal, Sesaya Arts Magazine 2025
