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Charles Spencer reviews Sweeney Todd starring Bryn Terfel at Royal Festival Hall
With the superb refurbishment of the Festival Hall, London now boasts the most exciting and beautiful arts quarter in the world, stretching from the London Eye to Shakespeare's Globe and taking in the National Theatre, Tate Modern and the BFI en route.
With buzzy restaurants and fabulous river views, the South Bank thrums with life, even in the perpetual grey drizzle that seems to be our summer.
Full marks, too, to artistic director Jude Kelly for a splendidly catholic opening season that has already ranged from the South Bank Centre's massed resident orchestras to the deafening thrash metal of Motörhead, both of which will have given the greatly improved Festival Hall acoustic a thorough work-out.
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Maria Friedman makes a deliciously perky foil as the insanely cheerful Mrs Lovett, who makes cannibalism seems almost cosy as she turns corpses into the tastiest pies in London.
And there's strong support from Daniel Evans as poor Tobias, doomed to make the most terrible discovery, Philip Quast as the rapacious Judge Turpin and Rosemary Ashe as the deranged Beggar Woman.
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