Hollywood's odd couple return

19-01-2008 08:15

Johnny Depp and Tim Burton are Hollywood's odd couple. Not that they are a bizarre match, on the contrary, they appear to enjoy a deep and true friendship based on the meeting of two souls. It is more that they continue to go against the grain and challenge our perceptions of what is traditionally 'beautiful' by creating weird and wonderful gothic fairytales.Now in their sixth collaboration, the formidable team have once again managed to work their magic, this time on Stephen Sondheim's gory stage musical about a murderous barber who slits the throats of his customers on his quest for revenge.Not a topic that immediately evokes comic thoughts, but in the fantastical imagination of Burton that is exactly what he set out to achieve with 'Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street'. He joked: "I thought it was a light-hearted comedy musical. I thought it was quite funny."Naturally, Depp takes the lead and plays the brooding Sweeney Todd with the type of intensity and inner-turmoil that first intoxicated Burton when he cast him in the title role in his 1997 movie 'Edward Scissorhands'.In fact, his portrayal has already been rewarded with a Golden Globe for Best Actor.Described by Burton as a "dead person" when we first meet him, our anti-hero has returned from exile to be told his wife is dead and his daughter is trapped by the man who sent him away on false charges, the evil Judge Turpin, played Alan Rickman.