Tooting Arts Club to Present Site-Specific Production of SWEENEY TODD, March 12

Tooting Arts Club's acclaimed production of Sweeney Todd is to move to a new home on Shaftesbury Avenue this spring whilst Harrington's Pie and Mash Shop undergoes refurbishment. The pop-up pie shop success story started last October when Tooting Arts offered up lovelorn Mrs Lovett's infamous pies in a grisly, site-specific production of Stephen Sondheim's most famous musical in SW17. Audiences met in the local barbers before being led into London's oldest, functioning pie-shop, established in 1908 and complete with original Victorian décor.

Whilst the Lovetts' Victorian home is out of action Tooting Arts will recreate the interior of the beloved Harrington's, meticulously building an exact replica on Shaftesbury Avenue to house the show, the first pop-up musical to come to Theatreland. Tickets go on sale today for the evocative and atmospheric production which will once again be delivered to intimate audiences by candlelight, across the tables. Tooting Arts will continue to partner with the Harrington's for the project, with meat pie, mash and liquor served up on site for audiences to buy before the show.

Rachel Edwards, Producer, Tooting Arts Club said "Putting Sweeney Todd on at Harrington's last year was a remarkable adventure. The project sums up exactly what TAC is about - creating inventive work that is born out exciting collaborations with people at the heart of the local community. To be able to share the project with a wider audience is a dream come true. The stars have aligned for us and through word of mouth the incredible support of Stephen Sondheim and Cameron Mackintosh we are able to make it happen all over again."

The cast includes: Siobhan McCarthy; Jeremy Secomb; Ian Mowat; Nadim Naaman; Duncan Smith; Joseph Taylor; and Kiara Jay; who all reprise their original roles, with Zoe Doano joining them for the first time.

Sweeney Todd is directed by Bill Buckhurst, who recently co-directed the international touring production of Shakespeare's Globe's Hamlet alongside Dominic Dromgoole. This is the fourth production Bill has directed for Tooting Arts Club, following Tinderbox in 2011, Barbarians in 2012 and A Midsummer Night's Dream last summer. His other directing credits include The Vegemite Tales in the West End and numerous touring productions for Shakespeare's Globe. Musical direction is from Benjamin Cox, also composer and musical director for acclaimed cabaret theatre troupe The Ruby Dolls.

Based on a Victorian horror story, Sweeney Todd is often considered Sondheim's masterpiece. The original 1979 production won a host of awards including both the Tony and Drama Desk Awards for music, book and the two lead actors.

Tooting Arts Club was established in 2011 with the aim to stage high quality professional productions in an area that lacks a permanent home for theatre. The company takes inspiration from the area, using local buildings to stage performances that draw audiences from across London, including critically acclaimed productions of Invasion! by Jonas Hassen Khemiri, Lucy Kirkwood's Tinderbox, Barrie Keefe's Barbarians(which was staged in a former Youth Enterprise Centre) and an outdoor A Midsummer Night's Dream. This second encounter of Sweeney Todd will be Tooting Arts Club's sixth production - and their first outside their familiar Tooting home.