Arts Picks

Sweeney Todd. PHOTO: SINGAPORE REPERTORY THEATRE
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The set-up for Sweeney Todd is straightforward. The demon barber of Fleet Street, who returns to London to seek vengeance, establishes a barber shop above a pie shop as part of his ruse. He kills his clients selectively and the bodies are callously dumped into the shop below, run by his partner in crime Mrs Lovett, who minces the victims for her meat pies.

But the set design in this production is unwieldy and distracting. The barber shop is perched on the back of a vehicle, which means "dead bodies" slide off the barber's chair and then off the vehicle before they walk into Mrs Lovett's oven.

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on December 06, 2019, with the headline Arts Picks. Subscribe