Attend the Tale

Last Friday I went to see Clyst Vale Community College's production of Sweeney Todd at the Barnfield Theatre in Exeter.  The College's reputation for putting on an excellent show is growing and well deserved.  The amount of work involved and the risk of a school taking over a professional performance space is a real tribute to the dedication of the staff. I am thankful that my daughter was able to take part this year by being in the stage crew.  The crew was so slick that I could barely see them.  I certainly could not pick out individuals which must mean that they all played their part very well indeed.

As the curtain rises the audience is in no doubt that this is a dark and sinister story of poverty, captivity and a blinding obsession with revenge. We were treated to the full works even in this, the school edition; atmospheric mist, hollow eyed Londoners and copious amounts of blood spurting from slit throats.  From the opening to the closing scene the chorus repeats its warning to "Attend the tale.  Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd".  It is a tale which ends in the almost complete destruction of the main characters.  The only two to escape are Todd's daughter Johanna and her lover Anthony, but whether they will escape the past is a question which haunts long after the curtain has come down.

For me though the most poignant and truly haunting moment comes not in the slitting of throats or the grinding of bodies to fill Mrs Lovett's pies, but in the first encounter between Johanna and Anthony.  He catches sight of her singing at her window and he is entranced.  Wanting to give her a gift, Anthony buys a songbird.  In answer to his question as to why the songbird flaps its wings so frantically, the bird seller replies "We blinds em sir".  She explains that the caged and blinded birds sing continuously as they no longer know whether it is day or night.

Attend the tale.....