Lovett *****

Lucy Roslyn delivers a performance masterclass in BoonDog Theatre’s production of Lovett.

The show explores the origins of Eleanor, before she became Sweeney Todd’s partner. Widowed, she is confronted daily by the battle for survival. 19^th Century London is a challenging place to be impoverished: workhouses, crime and cholera abound. Resourceful and formidable, she draws upon those skills learned from her whaler father, a courtesan mother and a butcher husband. The arc of her journey lays bare those difficult choices with which she must contend.

The scene is set with a butcher’s block as its centrepiece. Roslyn takes to the stage carefully and deliberately, her eyes demanding the audience’s unwavering attention, and she holds them transfixed for the duration. She embarks upon a performance that is, in turns, measured, precise, exciting and intoxicating. She bares Eleanor’s soul with linguistic precision, at times with a swagger, yet unflinchingly, her physical movement exquisite. At the show’s conclusion there was a moment of stony silence, not that of an unappreciative audience, but that of witnesses to an extraordinary, hypnotic, performance, now rapidly catching up - before the effusive applause broke through.

Jamie Firth’s direction is considered and insightful, but fundamentally allows Roslyn the space in which she can viscerally demonstrate her craft.

While Eleanor's provenance is explored, this is not a prequel to the infamous barber shop/pie making tale; rather, it is a device though which BoonDog shine a light on the societal, class and gender inequality in impoverished Victorian London, and on one woman’s relationship with God and nature. A remarkable tour de force – catch it if you can.