Mrs Lovett

“If you can’t pay the bills selling quince on the street, there is always the more lucrative trade of flesh”.

We all know the legend of Sweeney Todd. But little is known about his enigmatic accomplice, Mistress Pie Maker, Mrs. Lovett. This is the imagined story of her earlier years.

Dickensian London. A city of inequality, iniquity, poverty, crime, child labour, cruelty, gin, sex work: and opportunity.

Newly widowed, young Eleanor Lovett faces brutal choices. Lofty idealism, or a roof over her head. Fairness for her fellow man, or food on the table. When the difference is life or death, morality becomes a moveable feast. And Eleanor is getting hungry.

Constantly reinventing herself through the years, this darkly comic one-act play shows us exactly how far she is prepared to go to survive in a dog-eat dog world. The law here is for the powerful, and serves primarily to keep the social order exactly as it is.

If audiences are expecting a re-telling of Sweeney Todd then they will be caught off guard – This is a walk-through of London history of the early 1800s with a charismatic sociopath who will, by turn, charm and horrify, inform and titillate, make you laugh… and chill you to the bone. A musical it ain’t.

People are used to the slightly “Mad Hatter” version of Mrs Lovett, because there is no surer way to rob a woman of her weapons than to take her mind – but here we meet a sharply political woman dancing on the line of poverty. The dominoes of her life falling one by one leading us to question, at what point do we cash in our morals in order to survive?

True to the style of BoonDog Theatre, this direct-address piece presents a fascinating drama based on immaculately researched historical detail. Blending social commentary with dramatic intensity, Lovett takes the audience on a journey of contrasting emotions of empathy and revulsion. And, although set in the past, it goes to show that some things in society never change.

There, but for the grace of God, go us all.