Sweeney Todd - The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Time Out“Vivid, nightmarish and exhilarating. Bloody marvellous...” Ball's grim, vengeful anti-hero is mesmeric, his eyes aglitter beneath his curtain of lank hair. His very stillness is menacing; his rich voice wrings every nuance of fury, madness and desolation from the score...

Financial Times“It’s a dark, glinting treat...” Ball's excellent Sweeney is half of a whole here. He is matched throughout by an outstanding performance from Imelda Staunton as the ever-practical Mrs Lovett. Staunton brings a wonderful comic timing to the part...

The Independent“Sondheim's score still thrills...” Ball is frighteningly morose, this typically chirpy performer transmogrified into a hulking psychopath, with a greasy forehead and ghoulishly pallid face...

Evening Standard“It’s a chilling performance, sinister and saturnine...” This is an atmospheric Sweeney Todd, an unsettling musical thriller made razor-sharp by its two superb leads. When Ball and Staunton aren't on stage we are impatient for their return...

The Observer“It's horrifically enjoyable – not to be missed under any circumstances...” It's hilarious in its macabre, over-the-top way. It is the tense, incongruous juxtapositions and unpredictability of Sondheim's score that make the evening so powerful...

The Arts Desk“keeps the complex action moving elegantly across the stage...” In Sweeney, Sweeney is himself the psychopath, the actor, not the acted-upon. And Ball, while he does well enough, is ultimately just not big enough – not big enough psychologically, or of voice, or of sheer physical presence...

The Stage“Grips an audience and does not let go...” The night belongs to Ball and Staunton and to a show that pulls on the emotions other musicals cannot dare to reach...

The Telegraph“One of the greatest musicals of all time...” There is far more to commend than to criticise, and those lucky enough to be seeing Sweeney Todd for the first time will be blown away...

Whatsonstage.com“Technical presentation is perfect, with superb musical direction...” Fairy lights aside, Mark Henderson’s use of harsh and murky lighting, with rare pools of warmth, is exceptional; Sweeney caresses his friends, his knives, in huge sharp blades of illumination...

Guardian“A fresh look without destroying its essential fabric...” The show tapers off from perfection in the first act to mere brilliance in the second. But this is a superb achievement which proves that Sondheim's musical thriller has genuine social resonance...