Sweeney Todd to Return to the West End in July

Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd is returning to the West End. The Watermill Theatre production of the musical, starring Paul Hegarty and Karen Mann, will play a limited 12-week engagement at Trafalgar Studios at the Whitehall Theatre beginning on July 22.

Sweeney Todd, which features music and lyrics by Sondheim and a book by Hugh Wheeler, tells the tale of the "demon barber of Fleet Street," fresh out of jail for a crime he did not commit, who cooks up a macabre revenge scheme with his dazzlingly demented accomplice, Mrs. Lovett.

Directed and designed by John Doyle, this production of Sweeney Todd opened at the Watermill Theatre in Newbury in February and has recently completed a national tour. The cast of nine includes Hegarty as Sweeney Todd, Mann as Mrs. Lovett, Michael Howcroft as Beadle, Rebecca Jackson as the Beggar Woman, Stephanie Jacob as Pirelli, Rebecca Jenkins as Johanna, Sam Kenyon as Tobias, David Ricardo-Pearce as Anthony and Colin Wakefield The Judge.

This marks the third major London production of Sweeney Todd. The musical first opened at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in 1980 with Denis Quilley and Sheila Hancock in the lead roles. In 1993, the National Theatre revived Sweeney Todd with Julia McKenzie and Alun Armstrong.