Excellent production with a few minor flaws.

Rating: 10/10 (17 September 2012)

Don't read this, go watch it.
If you must know, I fault the production for omitting the chorus that begins and closes the stage show. Particularly, this flaw is at the closing of the show where the chorus brings us back from the story and states what the point of the story is in stark terms. I quote here but this is not a spoiler simply because it is not in the show. "Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd, who served a start and a vengeful god. To seek revenge may lead to hell, but everyone does it and seldom as well as Sweeny Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street." The story is set in an ancient English tradition of the revenge story and the English imagination can develop the most horrific and hideous forms of revenge. See, for example, Titus Andronicus, recently released as Titus and set in the Fascist modern architecture of the mid 20th century. In this story the raped and disfigured who had her tongue cut out identified her attackers who are cooked and served to their parents. This grand old English tradition goes back to the ballad of Lambkin who, having not been paid for his work stabs the baby in the crib, and so on. In more recent films The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is in this tradition, although it is not English.
I like a good tale of vengeance but I also like good music and the music is done surprisingly well in this movie.