Todd: gritty but witty

SWEENEY TODD

Adelphi Theatre, London WC2 (Tickets: 0844 811 0053, £20-£95)

GYPSY

Curve, Leicester (Tickets: 0116 242 3595, £18.75-£29.75)

MOON ON A RAINBOW SHAWL

National’s Cottesloe Theatre, London SE1 (Tickets: 020 7452 3000, £12-£32)

THE MASTER AND MARGARITA

Barbican Theatre, London EC2 (Tickets: 0845 120 7511, £16-£42)

ACOUPLE of weeks ago I co-hosted a lunch in London to present legendary Broadway composer/ lyricist Stephen Sondheim, who turned 82 on Thursday, with the Critics’ Circle annual award for distinguished services to the arts.

No one in the modern era of musicals has challenged and stretched the form more, though the work of Britain’s own Andrew Lloyd Webber may have a more popular touch, with mother in the 1959 musical he provided lyrics for; by coincidence, that show has been tremendously revived at Leicester’s Curve, with Caroline O’connor superbly charting the tragedy of a woman who lives her life damagingly through her daughters.

As she steers them through the vaudeville circuit in search of fame, one actually ends up a star, but in the bottom end of showbusiness in every way: she becomes a world famous stripper.

The production scores (and frequently soars) with O’connor quite beautifully matched in the understated warmth of David Fleeshman’s Herbie, who loves her with all his heart although it finally breaks (as did mine).

Also powerfully moving is Errol John’s 1958 Caribbean drama

The pace may be languid, but this slow-burn approach pays dividends in an intensely evocative production as we become utterly absorbed in the lives of its characters. It is also sensationally well-acted by a cast of some of our finest black actors, including Danny Sapani and Jenny Jules.

Finally, the Complicité company bring a mind and genre-expanding intensity to a vivid theatricalisation of Mikhail Bulgakov’s Russian novel

As it hurtles between past, present and future, the Devil descends on Moscow to prove the existence of God to religious sceptics: “If God doesn’t exist, who controls man’s destiny?” Expertly controlling the show’s own destiny is the god-like figure of its director Simon Mcburney who combines highly stylised audacity with startling technical confidence.

Gypsy,

On A Rainbow Shawl.

Master And Margarita.

Moon

The