For those who know all the words to his shows – of which there are many – the death of Stephen Sondheim in November 2021 felt all the more poignant because it happened during a global pandemic. So a tribute revue in May last year, celebrating 50 years of his music and lyrics, was momentous: a celebration of Being Alive, performed by an all-star lineup, some of whom – Judi Dench, Julia McKenzie – were from the demographic that had been most at risk. Old Friends had just one performance before being sealed away in theatre anecdote (and a forthcoming cast recording).
Its revival now as a commercial run raises questions about the limits of the revue format more than four decades after Side by Side by Sondheim brought his music to London. There is no narrative, leaving Stephen Mear’s choreography and Matthew Bourne’s staging to provide the through-line, which they do with wit and fluency. But it is akin to peering, Cinderella-like, through the windows at a dazzling ball to which you are denied entry. Here are Mrs Lovett and Sweeney Todd (Lea Salonga and Jeremy Secomb) hilariously cooking up their murderous pies; there is a young Seurat (Bradley Jaden) trying to make a world out of paint dots on a Sunday in the park.
