Blood and guts galore at Sweeney Todd

Blood and guts galore at Sweeney Todd

The last time Sweeney Todd made headlines in New Zealand, two high school performers were injured during a throat-slitting scene.

For the show's most recent reincarnation, the New Zealand and Victorian Operas have promised their knives will be blunt when they bring their version of the stage show to Auckland this weekend.

Sweeney Todd is the story of a barber who slits the throats of unsuspecting customers to be made into meat pies.

So it's probably not a surprise the production is well known for its blood and guts.

Chris McRae is one of the members of the ensemble who falls victim to the blade of Sweeney Todd, but the theatrics of getting killed on stage is something quite exciting for him.

"It's always fun to die on stage, it's very messy this one," he says. "There's a lot of blood involved."

Liam Murray is the man tasked with creating the blood and guts synonymous with Sweeney Todd productions.

"These are actually just marshmallows [and] fake blood in a condom, so they get pounded with a cleaver and tend to split and go everywhere," he says.

It wasn't hours upon hours of trying out different ingredients before he got it perfect, just a simple internet search seemed to do the trick.

"I had a great intern that I was working with in Melbourne when we first did the show, and we discovered it together and made them together and they look fantastic," Murray says.

As for just what goes into the blood, like all good props masters he's not revealing his trick.

"It's a bit of a trade secret, stage managers tend to guard their blood recipes very closely. This is one I came up with myself, along with my fabulous intern Elyse over in Melbourne."

But he let us in on a few of the ingredients - food colouring, golden syrup and a lot of sugar.

They've also got a team of people ready to wash it all out of every costume before they return to stage the following night.

And in terms of getting it right on the stage, it's quite simple. It just takes a bit of glad wrap and their secret mixture.

Newshub.