Sweeney Todd

West Yorkshire Playhouse, Leeds

3 Stars

While a successfully contemporarised production can reap rich dividends, the overarching concept of James Brining's production of Sweeney Todd fails to convince.

In his first show as artistic director of West Yorkshire Playhouse he relocates the action of Stephen Sondheim's musical from Victorian London to the early 1980s, with the intention of highlighting the disparity between rich and poor during both eras.

But for all of Margaret Thatcher's ills she never deployed transportation for convicts. Thus the '80s period often fails to gel with the details embedded in this Shakespearian-like revenge tragedy.

Colin Richmond's set, though impressive, deploys claustrophobic industrial containers to create a derelict dockside setting in place of shadowy alleys. It's within one of the strip-lighted units that David Birrell's introverted demon barber starts to dispatch victims with dispassionate efficiency.

His single-minded pursuit of revenge is matched by the lonely devotion of Mrs Lovett (Gillian Bevan), whose pie-making scheme revives the fortunes of a back street cafe that's hitherto been thick with grime and layers of dust.

The pair's moral turpitude extends to the majority of secondary characters, from rival barber Pirelli (Sebastien Torkia) - who sells his trade from the back of a souped-up truck - to Judge Turpin (Don Gallagher), flogging himself for having unchaste thoughts about his ward Johanna (Niamh Perry).

The darkness of this conduct seeps into the very meat of the musical, which is supported by a large chorus cast that shuffle like zombies while singing Sondheim's interweaving melodies under the direction of George Dyer.

Though the numbers are performed to live music, it's a pity that the band plays offstage rather than being incorporated into the set.

Impressively staged and performed, this Sweeney Todd is nonetheless let down by the decision to leave the original's Victorian gothic behind.

Runs until October 26. Box office: (0113) 213-770.

Susan Darlington