Sweeney Todd

We went down for to London for the weekend, have a mooch and then see a show or have a good meal. We weren't lucky with seeing a show, mostly because the only show I was wanted to go to see was sold out and I didn't fancy any of the others so we decided to go to the cinema instead.

It wasn't cheap, mind you it never is on Leicester Square and in someways it is truly a tourist trap. But the Odeon was a very comfortable tourist trap and the view of the screen was fantastic. We went to see Sweeney Todd, the new Tim Burton film and it was very good, the acting was almost universally excellent, the set design was fabulous, and the singing was good to enough to get by with but the one thing that really let it down and would stop me from saying that it was a five star film was the music. Try as I might I can not remember one single tune from the whole of the film, I couldn't remember the tunes five minutes after leaving the cinema they were that unmemorable - I have heard it said of Steven Sondheim before that he writes clever sophisticated music for clever sophisticated musicals but not actually anything that you could hum or sing to someone to entertain them because the tunes slip out of the mind faster then last nights weather forecast.

Even while watching the film I was struck with the thought that it was a shame that Lionel Bart never got his hands on the story because we'd have had a few ditties even if they would not have been terribly clever and sophisticated.