Matthew Seadon-Young, Alex Gaumond and Rosalie Craig will join Emma Thompson and Bryn Terfel in the cast of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street when the English National Opera production opens later this month.
Lonny Price’s highly anticipated take on the musical thriller, which has added an extra performance due to popular demand, will play at the London Coliseum from 30 March to 12 April, with the extra matinee scheduled for 5 April.
Seadon-Young will take on the role of Anthony Hope, swapping his recent role as Bobby Strong in the West End transfer of Urinetown The Musical for the young sailor who helps Sweeney board his ship to London.
Gaumond, who can be seen until the end of the week in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels The Musical, will play Beadle Bamford, the lackey to Philip Quast’s Judge Turpin. The actor’s other recent West End roles include the fear-inducing Miss Trunchbull in Matilda The Musical and Galileo in We Will Rock You.
Last seen on the London stage in the Donmar Warehouse’s critically acclaimed production of City Of Angels, Olivier Award nominee Craig will play the musical’s Beggar Woman. She was in contention for one of London theatre’s most prestigious prizes in 2014 for her performance in The Light Princess at the National Theatre.
Also joining the previously announced Thompson, Terfel and Quast are Katie Hall (Johanna Barker) and John Owen-Jones (Pirelli), both of whom have appeared in the current West End productions of Les Misérables and The Phantom Of The Opera during the course of their musical theatre careers. Jack North, who recently appeared in the Chichester Festival Theatre production of Gypsy, which, like Sweeney Todd, will open in the capital at the end of the month, will play Tobias Ragg.
The cast is completed by an ensemble comprising Madeleine Harland, Lydia Gerrard, Leah Penston, Frankie Jenna, Verity Quade, Susannah Van den Berg, Anna O’Byrne, Molly Lynch, Emily Bull, Gaia Wise, Alexandra Grierson, Vicki Lee Taylor, Katie Kerr, Ffion Emyr, Nancy Hill, Edd Campbell Bird, Alastair Brookshaw, Kane Oliver Parry, Scott Cripps, John Barr, Aaron Lee Lambert, Gary Tushaw, Ashley Robinson, Jeff Nicholson, Joseph Prouse, Gavin James, Marc Akinfolarin, Jacob Chapman, Ian Caddick and Adam Vaughan.
Featuring music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim with a book by Hugh Wheeler, Sweeney Todd tells the gruesome tale of a ruthless Victorian barber who seeks vengeance on what he sees as a merciless world by murdering his customers and, with the help of his pie-producing landlady Mrs Lovett, baking their bodies into pastry cases.
ENO’s take on the grisly musical thriller, which is the first in a major long-term partnership between the London Coliseum-based company and the GradeLinnit Company, will join another production of the Sondheim hit when it opens in the capital later this month.
The acclaimed Tooting Arts Club production of Sweeney Todd, which was originally staged in Harrington’s Pie And Mash Shop, will move to 39-45 Shaftesbury Avenue from 12 March.