Stephen Sondheim’s musical masterpieces on stage and screen – in pictures

From West Side Story to Sweeney Todd, Sunday in the Park With George to Into the Woods, Sondheim’s works have been performed – and loved – by the stars of musical theatre and cinema alike

Jim Hedge

Main image: Follies by Stephen Sondheim at the National Theatre in 2017. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian

  • A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum on the Olivier stage of the National Theatre, July 2004. The script was loosely based on the work of Roman playwright Plautus
    A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum on the Olivier stage of the National Theatre, July 2004.

  • Claire Cox as Fredrika Armfeldt in A Little Night Music on the Olivier stage of the National Theatre. The production opened in September 1995. The musical explores the romantic lives of several couples and was inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s Smiles of a Summer Night
    Claire Cox as Fredrika Armfeldt in A Little Night Music on the Olivier stage of the National Theatre

  • Ben Lewis (Larry), Patti Lupone (Joanne) and Rosalie Craig (Bobbie) in Company at the Gielgud Theatre in London. The bittersweet Manhattan musical follows a man about town whose friends have all settled down
    Ben Lewis (Larry), Patti Lupone (Joanne) and Rosalie Craig (Bobbie) in Company at the Gielgud Theatre in London

  • Elizabeth Taylor with Stephen Sondheim in London recording the songs for the film of A Little Night Music in August 1976. Sondheim wrote the music and lyrics for the film, which included hit Send in the Clowns
    Elizabeth Taylor with Stephen Sondheim in London

  • West Side Story Suite performed by the New York City Ballet. The production opened in March 2008. The singing was by offstage vocalists
    West Side Story Suite performed by the New York City Ballet

  • Hannah Bingham, Davis Brooks, Nolan Frederick (Balladeer), Holly Easterbrook and Anthony Delaney in Assassins at the Union Theatre in Southwark, south London. The production opened in July 2010. The musical took as its theme people who have or who have tried to assassinate a US president
    Hannah Bingham, Davis Brooks, Nolan Frederick (Balladeer), Holly Easterbrook and Anthony Delaney in Assassins at the Union Theatre in Southwark, south London

  • Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp in the 2007 film of Sweeney Todd – the Demon Barber of Fleet Street directed by Tim Burton. It is believed to have been Sondheim’s favourite screen adaptation of his work.
    Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp in the 2007 film of Sweeney Todd – the Demon Barber of Fleet Street

  • A scene from Merrily We Roll Along at the Menier Chocolate Factory in Southwark, south London, which opened in November 2012. The venue has won acclaim for a number of its Sondheim productions
    A scene from Merrily We Roll Along by Stephen Sondheim at the Menier Chocolate Factory

  • Emma Thompson (Mrs Lovett) and Bryn Terfel (Sweeney Todd) in Sweeney Todd at the London Coliseum, which opened in March 2015. One song refers to ‘shepherd’s pie peppered with actual shepherd on top’
    Emma Thompson (Mrs Lovett) and Bryn Terfel (Sweeney Todd) in Sweeney Todd

  • Sunday in the Park with George by Stephen Sondheim, with Daniel Evans and Anna Jane Casey, which opened at the Mernier Chocolate Factory in Southwark, south London in November 2005. Sondheim won a Pulitzer prize for the musical
    Sunday in the Park with George by Stephen Sondheim, with Daniel Evans and Anna Jane Casey

  • Geraldine Fitzgerald (Solange LaFitte) in Follies on the Olivier stage at the National Theatre, which opened in September 2017. Its lyrics have been described as ‘extravagantly clever’
    Geraldine Fitzgerald (Solange LaFitte), centre, in Follies on the Olivier stage at the National Theatre
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