So what was Vigil about? A navy crewmember is murdered aboard HMAS Vigil and because the sub is still in Scottish waters, it becomes a police investigation. DCI Silva (Suranne Jones) is flown out onto the sub and must face off a murderer, PTSD from a nasty watery incident from her past and possible WW3 while her lover, a fellow police officer (Rose Leslie), must investigate another connected murder on land.

The submarine story is rooted in reality via the UK’s Trident nuclear weapons program, a program that is highly contentious in Scotland where the subs are kept offshore in Scottish waters. I follow a couple of Scottish independence blogs here and there out of interest and from what I can gather Trident is part of the argument for independence – why should Scotland host weapons they didn’t ask for and don’t want? Certainly, the two major pro-independence parties, the SNP and the Greens, are anti-Trident. Here then, is an interesting premise for a show. I was hoping for an even-handed, Honourable Woman style look at the case for and against Trident in the guise of a murder mystery conspiracy thriller …

Alas, what I got was something much more boring and unbelievable and well … predictable. Incidentally, it’s the same reason I never liked Bodyguard, which threw away it’s unique, thought-provoking themes halfway through by dispatching Keeley Hawe’s home secretary in favour of a dull Jihadist evil villain plot with bonus Islamaphobia. I don’t watch political thrillers just to be entertained (though certainly, plenty of people watch TV this way and that’s fine). I watch because I want to think, to be educated, to be challenged. That was a bit hard with Vigil when the main story ended up centering on the villainy of the Russians (boo, hiss) and ultimately, a fairly conservative claim that Trident is necessary to protect the UK and its way of life. A claim, I might add, that was never adequately substantiated by evidence within the show itself.

I don’t tend to go in for nationalism, especially when no valid reason for it is really given in the story (the Russian thing felt like a way to specifically not engage with the issues with Trident in favour of positioning the trusty subs against cartoon evil villains in the Russians in a kind of false dichotomy), so this didn’t impress me much. Not to mention, I didn’t buy the way the writer talked about environmentalists and the anti-nuclear peace camp (apparently, the camp agrees with me because they refused to let the BBC film them for the show), nor did I like how the ostensibly SNP MP was depicted. This was a show with an agenda, and it wasn’t one I liked.

Having said that, I can usually handle conservative themes I don’t agree with in a drama and still like it (even if it may not become a fave). I watched all ten series of Spooks and Series 7 also has an ‘it iz alwayz ze Russians’ theme with the trusty spies versus the nation-state enemy and I loved it. Similarly, I’m a shameless Bond fanatic and don’t mind Marvel in moderation. I even gave Dark Knight Rises a decent film score even with its uncomfortable conservative agenda. If the story works thematically, or in terms of character and plot I won’t mind too much. Alas, Vigil’s plot got wilder and wilder by the week, with coincidences and bad decisions galore. Not to mention, a completely implausible escape out of a missile tube at the start of episode six.

In addition, Vigil felt like a show that didn’t know what story it wanted to tell. At first, it sold itself as a political conspiracy thriller (which is how I got sucked in because that’s my jam), then it turned into a kind of Agatha Christie on a submarine concept, then it morphed midway through into a modern day Cold War nation state thriller and then it turned into a blend of horror film with character driven romance. I don’t have a problem as such with any of these genres, but it all got too muddled, especially by the finale.

Finally, the baddies were so obviously telegraphed there wasn’t much suspense for me in the end. I spent all of the finale waiting for an interesting plot twist that never came. Indeed, a whole section of the internet guessed the murderous culprits by about episode two because of the obvious foreshadowing. And then there were the characters. I quite liked Rose Leslie. In fact, she was easily the best part of the show alongside the opening credits, but Suranne Jones (who to be fair, I don’t usually mind) felt fairly oppressive. Her character was constantly stressed, aggressive, put upon and depressed, which while I understand was the script, got a bit wearing particularly on top of the claustrophobia of the submarine setting itself.

In the end I was frustrated, incredulous and more than a little bored by the whole thing, though at least the same sex couple didn’t get fridged and ended up happy. That was something. Still, there’s talk of a Series 2. Dear God, no.

His skin was pale, and his eye was odd.

He shaved the faces of gentlemen

who never thereafter were heard of again…’

So begin’s one of Broadway’s most chilling musical pieces…

I first saw Burton’s movie in 2008 when it was in cinema’s in Australia. I’d never heard of the original horror story before, and generally I hate horror, but my love for Helena Bonham Carter won out, and got me to the cinema. I ended up seeing the film three times in cinemas because I loved it so much. For me, the power of the movie was the jarring combination of Sondheim’s soaring and beautifully complex score and lyrics combined with the sheer brutality of the story being told. Lovely art direction and acting definitely helped.

My friend lent me a copy of the original penny dreadful, with the popular culture legend based off the weekly periodical, and even though penny dreadful’s are renowned for catering to the lowest common denominator, meandering all over the place, due to their status as a newspaper weekly periodical written by multiple writers, or by writers writing multiple tales at once, I was keen to read this one, if only to find out how much the tale has evolved.

Rather alot it turns out. The original penny dreadful is surprisingly readable, and for the most part, keeps its story straight. Mrs Lovett has about four chapters dedicated to her out of thirty seven and the story starts off with her already in cahoots with Sweeney. Sweeney Todd is a right evil villain, without a backstory for it beyond greed, cunning, and a desire to make it big, quick. Johanna and her lover, Mark Ingistrie (later becoming Antony) are lovers before the story begins, with Mark going to sea to make his fortune in order to marry Johanna. Mark brings back a string of pearls with disatrous results. Sweeney kills the messenger, literally, runs off with the pearls, and kills his clients with wild abandon in an effort to shut up shop and retire fast. His clients get disposed of via the chair which links via passageway to Mrs Lovett’s pie shop. And yes, she does bake those bodies into pies. Tobias is Sweeney’s latest shop assistant and upon finding out about Sweeney’s evil secret is incarcerated in an asylum. Mark Ingestrie is hidden in the narrative right up until the rather obvious end, when he and the plucky Johanna live happily ever after. St Dunstan’s market and church make an appearance, and so does The Beadle briefly, though as a good guy. There is no judge at all.

The penny dreadful was entitled “The String of Pearls: A Romance” and was set much earlier than later play adaptations, much more about the daring do’s of Johanna and Tobias, fighting to survive amongst the cut throats, criminals and madmen of London’s dark underbelly. And of course, centre stage is the romance of Mark and Johanna. Sweeney and Mrs Lovett are are black as you can get, and you don’t spend a second sympathising with either of them.

In subsequent play productions of the penny dreadful, such was the popularity of Sweeney and Mrs Lovett, it was they who started to claim the show more and more, though still with Sweeney as villainous mastermind, in a kind of centre stage one man show. It was not until Christopher Bond reinterpreted the original story in 1970 to give Sweeney a sympathetic backstory based on revenge, with Mrs Lovett as a still willing, yet this time, deeply in love accomplice, that the story as it is famously known today surfaced.

No longer was Sweeney simply a common criminal; now he was a man wrongly accused, sent overseas and torn apart from his family, because the hand of the law was long and corrupt and lustful. His existential crisis leads him to seek revenge for these wrongs, with the judge and his faithful Beadle, the targets of Sweeney’s murders. Mrs Lovett is no longer simply a conniving and cold hearted money maker, she is now a lady lost in a love she can never have. The simple Tobias Ragg just wants somebody to respect him, Johanna falls in love with the sailor boy Antony, even as she is kept in captivity by the lustful judge, who intends to marry her, as Sweeney’s daughter. And the judge is in some ways more of a villain then Sweeney.

Sondheim saw a stage production of Bond’s play and wrote his own musical based off this version, better known today as the justifiably famous 1979 Broadway play, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. 80% sung opretta, the original production starred Angela Lansbury as Mrs Lovett and Len Cariou as Sweeney Todd. Who could forget the powerful  and reoccuring narrational The Ballad of Sweeney Todd, or the heartfelt raw nihilism of Epiphany, the delightful and disturbing humour of A Little Priest, the sweet innocence of Kiss Me, the chilling beauty, power and devestation of Final Scene? Regarded by Sondheim as a musical about obsessional revenge, and by director Harold Prince as a comment on capitalism, class, and power imbalance in soicety, it won alot of awards, but has never achieved the same popularity as musicals such as Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera.

Burton’s film adapted for a new audience yet again. This time, and due to the nature of a film medium, the external narration was cut, Johanna and Antony take a back seat for Sweeney Todd and Mrs Lovett to shine, and Toby is a child, rather than a ‘simple’ man. Mrs Lovett is younger, and her maternal insincts are played up, eyes glistening with longing every time Sweeney looks her way, the camera lingering on her every glance, and movement, as she tries to seduce him so that they can live her dream life, ‘By The Sea.’ In the film version, every fibre of Mrs Lovett’s being is geared towards achieving her impossible dream of domesticity with Sweeney, Toby just wants a family, and Sweeney is so consumed with rage and despair he cares for nothing beyond the judge’s demise. It is, in my opinion, a movie masterpiece.

Burton cast actors who could sing, rather than singers who could act, minimising the theatrical nature of the play medium in favour of strong, visceral, performances.

Johnny Depp’s Sweeney sings in emotion laden rock style, and Helena’s Mrs Lovett is timerous, and soft, oozing both sexuality and soft maternal love. The genius choice to cast Toby as a boy led to one of the film’s finest moments, as Toby sings Not While I’m Around to a devestated Mrs Lovett.

A review by famous Rolling Stones film critic, Peter Travers sums it up best for me: “Sweeney Todd is a thriller-diller from start to finish: scary, monstrously funny and melodically thrilling…Covered in blood, Sweeney is finally engulfed by his emotions, and Depp finds the character’s grieving heart. It’s a staggering moment in a spellbinder of breathtaking beauty and terror.”
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/reviews/sweeney-todd-20071213#ixzz1tln2hXON

Though the original penny dreadful spawned one of the west’s most popular tales of urban horror, it is Sondheim’s ingenious musical, straddling both gut churning thriller and melodic beauty, that speaks most to me. Emotional, terrifying, and visceral, it is one of my favourite musicals, and Burton’s film adaptation remains one of the best film’s I have ever seen.

So without futher ado, I urge you to…

Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd.

He served a dark and hungry god.

To seek revenge may lead to hell,

but everyone does it, and seldom as well

as Sweeney, as Sweeney Todd,

The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.