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Ladies and Gentlemen...I have to state that Mrs Lovett' s pies are made OF human flesh ! ' This shocking announcement provides the stunning d'. enouement TO a narrative first published OVER a period OF four months IN the winter OF 1846 - 7. The revelation marked ONLY the beginning,. however, OF the notorious career OF Sweeney Todd,. soon known TO legend AS the ' Demon Barber ' OF London ' s Fleet Street.The story OF Todd ' s entrepreneurial partnership WITH neighbouring pie - maker. Margery Lovett - at ONCE inconceivably unpalatable AND undeniably compelling - has subsequently provided the substance FOR. a seemingly endless series OF successful dramatic adaptations, popular songs AND ballads, novellas, radio plays, graphic novels, ballets, films, AND. musicals.Both gleeful AND ghoulish, the original tale OF Sweeney Todd, first published under the title The String OF Pearls,. IS an early classic OF British horror writing.It combines the story OF Todd 's grisly method of robbing and dispatching his victims with a romantic sub-plot involving deception, disguise, and detective work, set against the backdrop of London'. s dark AND unsavoury streets.This edition provides an authoritative text OF the first version OF the story ever TO be published,. AS well AS a lively introduction TO its history AND reputation.

Derived from the colorful traditions of vaudeville, burlesque, revue, and operetta, the musical has blossomed into America's most popular form of theater. Scott McMillin has developed a fresh aesthetic theory of this underrated art form, exploring the musical as a type of drama deserving the kind of critical and theoretical regard given to Chekhov or opera. Until recently, the musical has been considered either an \"integrated\" form of theater or an inferior sibling of opera. McMillin demonstrates that neither of these views is accurate, and that the musical holds true to the disjunctive and irreverent forms of popular entertainment from which it arose a century ago. Critics and composers have long held the musical to the standards applied to opera, asserting that each piece should work together to create a seamless drama. But McMillin argues that the musical is a different form of theater, requiring the suspension of the plot for song. The musical's success lies not in the smoothness of unity, but in the crackle of difference. While disparate, the dancing, music, dialogue, and songs combine to explore different aspects of the action and the characters. Discussing composers and writers such as Rodgers and Hammerstein, Stephen Sondheim, Kander and Ebb, Leonard Bernstein, and Jerome Kern,The Musical as Dramadescribes the continuity of this distinctively American dramatic genre, from the shows of the 1920s and 1930s to the musicals of today.

The American musical has long provided an important vehicle through which writers, performers, and audiences reimagine who they are and how they might best interact with the world around them. Musicals are especially good at this because they provide not only an opportunity for us to enact dramatic versions of alternative identities, but also the material for performing such alternatives in the real world, through songs and the characters and attitudes those songs project.

Surely the minute those Frozen box office numbers started rolling in you knew its characters would find their way into Once -- as what once seemed to be a clever reworking of old fairy tales continues to become a cross-marketing tool for Disney projects. Georgina Haig, Elizabeth Lail and Scott Michael Foster join the cast as Elsa, Anna and Kristoff for a story designed as a sequel to a film that really didn't feel as if it needed one.

Elliot Norton interviews Angela Lansbury and George Hearn the stars of the award-winning Stephen Sondheim musical Sweeney Todd, now playing at Boston's Metropolitan Center.

[Sweeney Todd] spends years in exile for a crime he didn't commit and returnsto London wanting revenge. He goes on a murderous rampage, luring his victimsinto the barber shop he opens above Mrs. [Lovett]'s meat shop. He kills them, shebakes them into pies. Long before everyone's favourite neurotic took up with the way-too-youngSoon- Yi Previn (the adopted daughter of his long-time companion, Mia Farrow ), [Woody Allen]'s 42-year-old on-screen alter ego, Isaac, had a May-December relationshipwith a 17-year-old. Inappropriate to say the least, not to mention a littlecreepy. But somehow, against the gorgeous backdrop of Manhattan and asoundtrack that includes Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue and Embraceable You, itworks.

In addition, the inaugural Courage Award went to Durban actress Gaynor Young, who in 1989 had a stage accident at Pretoria's State Theatre, during a production of the musical Camelot, that left her disabled at the height of her career. A Voice I Cannot Silence, a drama about author Alan Paton which was the flagship production at last year's Hilton Arts Festival at Hilton College, and is soon to be staged at Durban's Playhouse, took awards for best lead actor in a play (Ralph Lawson), new script (Lawson and Greg Homann) and best newcomer (Durban's Menzi Mkhwane, the son of stage and TV star Bheki Mkhwane). Lara Foot's brilliant staging of Fishers of Hope, presented at Durban's Playhouse last year, received four awards - for best play, set design (Patrick Curtis), supporting actor (Phillip Tipo Tindisa) and original choreography (Grant van Ster).

In partnership with the Open University, Bettany Hughes presents a guide to three top thinkers of the sixth and fifth centuries BC. To India first, for a carefully paced introduction to each stage of the Buddha's journey towards a new perspective on human existence. It's Buddhism for beginners, with the simplicity of the material enlivened by the fact that many of the key locations are to some extent intact, and the beliefs and customs to which Buddhism was an alternative have also survived. Jack Seale A chance to poke at the nuts and bolts of choreography. Reality-show jeopardy means the BalletBoyz company have one month, about a third of the normal time, to conceive and rehearse an interpretation of the Kama Sutra. While the subject matter intensifies the dancers' delicate compromise between physicality and carnality, what's more interesting is the laying bare of the process: the shaping and sifting of movements into a cohesive whole. Did they do it? There's a full performance at the end for you to judge. JS Selina welcomes a US journalist returning from captivity in Tehran, back into the US bosom, neglecting to mention that his release was put back to mesh with her schedule. Meanwhile, Amy's jaw virtually fuses mid-grimace when Potus introduces a new expert to the gang. Let's stand back and appreciate the wit and artistry of Veep for a minute. Just because they all make it look so effortless, doesn't mean we shouldn't be genuflecting at the lot of them like grateful serfs. Julia Raeside

A couple of things are conspicuously absent from TheatreWorks Florida's production of \"Sweeney Todd,\" onstage at the Garden Theatre in Winter Garden.

Sweeney Todd is being staged at one of the capital's oldest pie-and-mash shops. Audiences will meet at Anton's barber shop in Tooting, south-west London, before being ushered into Harrington's Pie and Mash Shop.