Interview with Chris Bond
March 2009

The Queen’s Theatre welcomes back Chris Bond, the writer and director of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Chris’s Lionel Bart musical It’s a Fine Life! premiéred at the Queen’s in 2006 to critical acclaim and he also directed Alice on the Underground here in 2004. It is Chris’s version of Sweeney Todd that inspired Stephen Sondheim’s renowned musical and Tim Burton’s 2007 film starring Johnny Depp. As Chris directs this play for the first time, we catch up with him to find out more about why he came to write it, what his influences were and how it became a huge success.

When did you first come across the tale of Sweeney Todd?

I first heard about Sweeney Todd in 1968 when I read The String of Pearls: The Fiend of Fleet Street, a 19th century melodrama by George Dibdin Pitt. I was 22 and it was given to me to read by Peter Cheeseman, Artistic Director of the Victoria Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent, where I was working as an actor. I’d had a novel published the previous year and Peter asked me if I’d do some rewrites on the script as we were due to start rehearsing in 3 weeks time and it didn’t really suit the company’s style.

How did you come to write a whole new version of the legend?

I read Pitt’s play a couple of times and then with the confidence and arrogance of youth, decided that what it needed was a heart transplant rather than a facelift. His script is very short, there’s hardly any plot, Todd and Mrs Lovett are motivated solely by greed, and the other characters are crudely drawn. So I set out to write what was effectively a new play in a week, retaining the central idea of a homicidal barber and his pie-making partner, but creating a hopefully more interesting story driven by more complex characters.

Besides Pitt’s play, there was also the first film version of the story The Demon Barber of Fleet Street directed by George King in 1936. How does your version differ from these earlier interpretations?

The principal difference is that my Sweeney’s motive for what he does is vengeance, not money. I wanted to write the story in the style of a traditional English revenge tragedy, most of which are set in foreign courts where corruption is rife. So I used that pattern – the show incorporates two suitably corrupt authority figures - but I retained London as the setting. I wanted to make Sweeney a tragic hero in the classical sense: a ‘great’ man destroyed by his own actions.

I also wanted to write a love story. Money comes into Mrs Lovett’s calculations, but the mainspring of everything she does is her love for Sweeney. And for good measure, I added a romantic subplot involving Anthony and Sweeney’s daughter Johanna.

What influences did you have for the characters, style and story line?

I had plenty. For example, my version of the play is partly based on my favourite novel, The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas, a High Romantic story about a wronged man who returns. This spoke to me because it was a reason above and beyond money for Sweeney to behave the way he does.

As for some of the language used, I was in The Revenger’s Tragedy by Thomas Middleton, directed by Trevor Nunn for RSC. It was absolutely stunning. I enjoyed being in it so much, I thought: let’s mix some of that script in it.

The inspiration for Mrs Lovett came from a philosophising widow greengrocer called Brenda who lived opposite me and who had a wild crush on me! I thought if I juxtapose The Revenger’s Tragedy hero with Brenda, that will give me the kind of chemistry that I think could work.

I chose the name Pirelli because the make of my house slippers was Pirelli! And the character of Tobias and the street patter was inspired by my time as a boy, helping my uncle sell dodgy crockery at a stall in Chapel Street Market!

How do you feel about directing your play Sweeney Todd for the first time?

Although I’ve never directed the play before, I actually played Tobias in the first production and I have directed the musical version.

As musicals go, I found it was quite a challenge to maintain the momentum of the plot-heavy story.
But directing the play is more like a sports car – the twists and turns should come much quicker. This is a story driven by revenge, lust, the love of food and the characters’ needs and desires. It doesn’t stop very often and I like that.

What are the challenges of directing a play, especially your own work?

I’ve directed quite a few of my own plays, although not this one before. The jobs are very different; writing is a solitary occupation principally concerned with what I am trying to say and why. Directing is a very much a collaborative activity; with the design team, performers, technicians and the admin. One is constantly asking ‘How can we make this clear? How can we make it more interesting, more exciting? How can we make things happen faster, smoother?’

This play will stand or fall simply on its truth and intensity. Everything that is acted on stage has got to be true. If the scene is not working at the level we want it to emotionally, we need to screw the lid on the pressure cooker as it were, so it becomes more intense.

I like both writing and directing and the only danger in combining them is that sometimes one knows the piece too well and assumes an audience does as well. I usually invite a fellow director or member of staff at the theatre who doesn’t know the show to check out at an early run through, just to see I’m not missing the obvious nor cutting corners.

How did your play come to be transformed into the famous musical, which went on to become a multi-award-winning Broadway and West End hit?

The famous composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim watched the play when it opened at the Theatre Royal Stratford East in 1973. He asked me to let him turn it into a musical and I agreed.

And did you have much input to the Tim Burton film version in 2007?

I was involved in discussions about the film with Stephen Sondheim, who has remained a friend. I watched a preview of it with him before it opened last year, but I felt that despite Johnny Depp’s weird and wonderful stab at Sweeney, it didn’t really work as the story-telling wasn’t handled very well. But I’m not much of a judge of films as I don’t like the medium much – I find it very hard to get involved because it’s two-dimensional. I only go to the cinema about once a year, most recently I was dragged kicking and screaming by my wife and daughters to see Mamma Mia!

What do you think it is about Sweeney Todd that makes it especially suitable for the stage?

I enjoy theatre because the stage and the audience are both living. I think what theatre does best is passion and fun; strong stories that seek to emotionally involve the audience; larger than life characters in desperate situations. Sweeney Todd is a very good vehicle for conveying this because the characters are passionate and so over the top. This is far from a realistic piece because all the characters are driven and the emotions massive. Everything is life and death – people fall in love instantly and are immediately removed to mental asylums!

Stories like this work best in the theatre because it’s live, in the moment. Before your very eyes: and on a good night you can feel the energy crackling between the stage and the auditorium. I don’t get that feeling in front of a screen, either in the cinema or from TV. This story and these characters can give you that feeling, if we get them right.