You There, My Friend

So, this is basically a review of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

BOTH the movie and the musical. Starting with the musical.

The musical version of Sweeney Todd was performed in Broadway with Angela Lansbury and Len… well, Len something. If you haven’t seen it, go to Youtube and search “Angela Lansbury Sweeney Todd” right now. Okay.

Done?

The reason I wanted to talk about it is because we are doing this production at my school. It’s pretty intense, people. High D-flats and basses singing higher than the tenors. Talk about crazy.

But I really, really, REALLY like the musical because of the sheer range of the vocalists as well as the quirky story, seeing that it is the very first horror musical. It’s really delightful. I mean, come on. Baking people into pies? That’s pretty much horror material right there. Put in a crazy barber, some straight razors, and a lovesick conspiratorial baker who lives just downstairs, and there you have it.

Onto the movie!

The movie, with Johnny Depp(I’m sorry, did someone say ridiculously awesome?) and Helena Bonham Carter (I love her), was just good. I mean, their acting was phenomenal and all, but they aren’t singers, and the people cut half the songs out, not to mention all the chorus pieces, so there really wasn’t much of the music at all. I do admit that it was very creative, and it was also very realistic. A job well done if you ask me, considering that they’ve never formally been singers.

And must we again cover the fact that the two leads are like… automatically shippable. They are amazing together.

End of story.