ON BARBERISM

I fucking hate musicals. Loathe them with a passion that borders on genocidal zealotry. Ask me to go to see a musical with you – go on, I dare you. Just make sure you take out a comprehensive medical insurance policy first (especially you Yanks and your ludicrous excuse for a health system), because the merest suggestion might induce me to lash out in flailing convulsions of total revulsion: at the show for being a plotless, brain-wrecking waste of the precious seconds to my ever waning life, and at you for even suggesting that I might just be the kind of mentally vacuous miscreant that would voluntarily subject himself to such torture. I’d rather ram a corkscrew up my dickhole.

The preceding paragraph sums up my opinion of musical theatre prior to my discovery on one Steven Sondheim. Whereas pretty much every musical running on the West End/ Broadway/ some town hall rented out by a university Gilbert and Sullivan society are still quite able to drive me to eradicative levels or rage, the inclusion of The Sondheim Factor acts as a catalysing agent that results in an almost alchemical conversion of the constituent parts of staged shit into a joyous experience for all.

How is the possible? Possibly because Sondheim doesn’t treat his audience like idiots, pitching his witty wordplay and complex compositions far above the proles who normally turn up to these things looking for glitter and a catchy ditty to bop along to. He also chooses some brilliant subject matter – piss off Joseph and your chorus-line of God-squad crooners, I’m going to see the one about US presidential assassins, thank-you-very-much.

Which brings me to Sweeny Todd, considered to be a pinnacle of the form. I have not seen it on stage, but I must admit the film will have me snapping up tickets should it ever come my way. I’m not a Tim Burton fan. His films always promise a dark edge, yet never capitalise upon it. Not so this time around: the darkness is reaped in full, from an opening send-up of the shitehole that is London (cast in an almost completely desaturated tone) through to the inevitable murders and body disposal thereafter.

Ahh, the murders. Half of the cinema didn’t realise the flick was sporting an shiny new 18 certificate, and boy does the film exploit it. Arterial spray gushes in a most theatrical fashion barely seen outside of a Fulci splatterthon. Many hands were raised to eyes. There’s nastier stuff still, but I shan’t spoil it for you.

The cast are brilliantly engaging, with quite a few unexpectedly good singers among them (Johnny Depp? Alan Rickman? Timothy Spall?!) and all carry off Sondheim’s brilliant writing wonderfully.

So, drag me to the musicals if you must, but let me assure you – the blood had better be on the stage, or the aisles will be swimming with it.

Something That Made Me Laugh™