A Small Mind At The Theatre

For my fifth visit to the Masque Theatre, I headed Into The Woods  for their production of Stephen Sondheim's musical. In my fast learning theatre binge this year, I had encountered Sondheim once before with Sweeney Todd ( review here ) and to say I had been mighty impressed was an understatement. Even to my untrained ear, Sondheim is quite a different writer of music which needs a great deal of concentration. However it is mightly rewarding if you do. From the book by James Lapine, and cleverly weaving many Brother Grimms' fairy tales into one, it is a suitably macabre little story built around a constant musical track. While not having many totally memorable individual tunes with the exception of Into The Woods itself, the whole works suberbly together to make a hugely enjoyable musical. In their production, the Masque Theatre were once again showing their pedigree beyond their "amateur" status. None of the performers were a let down, and some were simply superb...

I like the story of Sweeney Todd, the particularly morbid, horrific tale appeals to me (need counselling), and Stephen Sondheim's musical version is a particularly clever and fun (yes fun as we slit them throats) version of the tale. This particular version was performed by the talented bunch of youngsters that makes up the Royal & Derngate Youth Theatre under the guidance of director Christopher Gorry, whose work I had seen previously in Honk Jnr a few weeks before. Once again he had crafted magic from these skilled young performers. The ensemble welcomed us to the show with a stirring (and loud) rendition of The Ballad Of Sweeney Todd , after which Sweeney made his appearance in the guise of Brett Mason. From the outset Mason captured the character with aplomb and portrayed the tortured soul of both the loss of his wife and his freedom through to his demonic collapse. Also introduced with the song No Place Like London was Michael Ryan as Anthony. Ryan for me was one of t...