Sweeney's Magical Makeover ; 'the First Musical to Transfer Successfully to the Screen' Is Stephen Sondheim's Verdict On a New Film of His Masterpiece Even If a Third has Been Cut

Summary

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AT A screening of Sweeney Todd in Leicester Square just before Christmas, Stephen Sondheim stood up in his well-worn grey sweater and advised the forty-odd invited friends not to waste time making lists of what was missing from the show, "or you're not going to enjoy it at all".

At four minutes under two hours, Tim Burton's movie is more than a third shorter than the stage musical and unadorned by any pedigree singer or torch-song. Sondheim, a hawk-eyed perfectionist who labours long and late over the scansion of every last syllable, had turned over his finest work to the gothic slashers of Hollywood to do with as they would. He took no active role in the adaptation yet, strangely, he seemed pleased with the result.

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Sweeney's Magical Makeover ; 'the First Musical to Transfer Successfully to the Screen' Is Stephen Sondheim's Verdict On a New Film of His Masterpiece Even If a Third has Been Cut

"Think of it," smiled the composer, "as a movie. Don't think of it as a musical." Two hours later, that distinction was resoundingly confirmed. Burton's spartan reduction unfolds the tale as a Victorian epic in which good and evil interplay in the cesspit of...

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